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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LANDMARKS 



OF 



OLD TESTAMENT HISTOET 



LANDMAEKS 



OF 



OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY 



SAIVIUEL TO MALACHI 



CUNNINGHAM UEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF "LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST," "HOURS WITH THE BIBLE," ETC. 



.^"^V^CVRU- 



NEW YORK ' 

JAMES POTT & COMPANY 

114 Fifth Avenue 

1894 




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COPYKIGHT, 1894, BY 

CniN:NINGHAM GEIKIE 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE. 

This volume consists, for the most part, of articles which 
have appeared in the Sunday School Times of Philadelphia, 
the kindness of the proprietors allowing me to reproduce 
them in the present form. A number of extra papers have, 
however, been added by me to make the whole more 
complete. 

As a succession of brief, vivid pictures of Old Testament 
life so perennially interesting, I trust it may give pleasure 
to large numbers. 

CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE. 

February, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 



BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL 
THE FALL OP SHILOH . 
SAMUEL, THE EEPORMER 
INTRODUCTION OP MONARCHY 
THE ELECTION OP SAUL 
SAMUEL'S PARTING ADDRESS 
REJECTION OP SAUL 
ANOINTING OP DAVID 
DAVID AND GOLIATH 
DAVID AND JONATHAN 
DAVID SPARING SAUL 
DEATH OP SAUL 
RETROSPECT OF SAUL'S LIFE 
RISE OF DAVID 
DAVID AT JERUSALEM 
DAVID AS KING 
DAVID AND URIAH . 
THE CURSE COMES HOME 
DAVID'S GRiEP FOR ABSALOM 
CHARACTER OP DAVID . 
SOLOMON'S WISE CHOICE 
THE TEMPLE . 
THE FAME OF SOLOMON . 
SOLOMON'S SHORTCOMINGS 
SOLOMON'S IDOLATRY 



PAGE 
1-5 

6-11 

12-17 

18-23 

24-30 

31-35 

36-40 

41-45 

46-50 

51-55 

56-60 

61-65 

66-70 

71-75 

76-81 

82-86 

87-91 

92-97 

98-102 

103-106 

107-111 

112-115 

116-119 

120-124 

125-127 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

close of solomon's eeign 128-131 

jeeoboam's eevolt 132-136 

jeeoboam's policy 137-140 

the geeat deought undee AHAB 141-145 

ELIJAH AT CAEMEL 146-151 

ELIJAH APTEE CAEMEL 152-156 

JEZEBEL 157-161 

ELIJAH'S TEANSLATION 162-166 

ELISHA 167-171 

THE EAISED SON . . . . . . ■ . . . 172-177 

NAAMAN 178-182 

GEHAZI 183-187 

THE ATTEMPTED CAPTUEE OF ELISHA .... 188-192 

THE NOETHEEN KINGDOM 193-197 

SIEGE OF SAMAEIA . 19S-202 

JEHU , . . . 203-207 

JEEOBOAM II. AND THE PEOPHET JONAH .... 208-212 

NINEVEH 213-217 

HOSEA 218-222 

" THE DEUNKAEDS OF EPHEAIM " 223-228 

AMOS 229-232 

THE MESSAGE OF AMOS 233-237 

PALL OP THE NOETHEEN KINGDOM 238-243 

EETEOSPECT OF THE NOETHEEN KINGDOM .... 244-248 

ATHALIAH 249-253 

HezekiaS 254-259 

isaiah op jeeusalem 260-265 

the geeat hope 266-272 

hezekiah and assyeia 273-279 

the suffeeing " seevant of god " 280-284 

josiah . 285-290 

jehoiakim 291-297 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE 

JEHOIACHIN 298-303 

JEREMIAH DURING THE SIEGE 304-309 

JEREMIAH AT THE FALL OP THE CITY .... 310-314 

RETROSPECT 315-31 

IN EXILE 820-324 

A prophet's PICTURE OP THE RETURN .... 325-328 

LIGHT IN DARKNESS 329-333 

CYRUS 334-339 

HOME, SWEET HOME , . . 340-344 

THORNS ON THE ROSE 345-350 

THE PROPHET HAGGAI 351-355 

FURTHER VISIONS OP ZECHARIAH 356-359 

LIGHT IN DARKNESS 360-365 

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH 366-369 

NEHEMIAH 370-375 

THE READING OP THE LAW 376-380 

THE FEAST OP TABERNACLES 381-386 

MALACHI 387-391 

QUEEN ESTHER 392-397 

LOOKING BACK . . , 398-402 

THE YOUTH OF DANIEL . . 403-407 

THE king's DREAM 408-412 

THE GOLDEN IMAGE 413-418 

THE DEN OF LIONS 419-424 

the patriarch job 425-429 

job and his friends ........ 430-434 

job's reply 435-441 

SELECTIONS FROM THE PSALMS. 

THE FIRST PSALM 442-445 

THE SECOND PSALM 446-450 

THE NINETEENTH PSALM 451-454 



CONTENTS. 



THE TWENTY-THIED PSALM . 
THE FIFTY-FIKST PSALM 
THE SEVENTY-SECOND PSALM 
THE EIGHTY-FOUETH PSALM 
THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM 



PAGE 

455-458 
459-462 
463-467 
468-473 
474-478 



WISDOM FROM THE PROVERBS 



TRUE WISDOM .... 

WORTHY LIFE .... 

A CLUSTER OF PROVERBS 

PATERNAL COUNSELS 

THE PRAISE OP SOBRIETY 

THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE 

"THE PREACHER" . 

THE PREACHER'S LAST WORDS 

REFLECTIONS . • . . 



479-483 
484-488 
489-493 
494-499 
500-503 
504-508 
509-513 
514-518 
619-525 



LANDMAKKS 

OF 

OLD TESTAMENT HISTOEY. 



BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 

The birth of Samuel marks a decisive point in the history 
of Israel, for in his lifetime and by his action, the old 
system of tribal government, which had lasted, under the 
" Judges," for at least two hundred years, gave place to 
monarchy, while his long and splendid services as a re- 
former rekindled the religious spirit in the nations. His 
wise and far-sighted institution of seminaries for the train- 
ing of prophets, or, as we say, religious teachers, provided, 
moreover, a permanent source of healthy moral influence, 
and also a succession of fearless tribunes of the people, 
to stand, on the one hand, between them and the des- 
potism of the throne, and on the other, between their 
higher religious aspirations and the deadening formality 
of the merely ritual worship supplied by the priesthood. 
His father was one Elkanah, of Eamathaim, in the hill 
country of Ephraim ; the place, it may be, now known as 
Neby Samwil, a hill sloping gradually to a higher elevation 
than any other near it, and a striking object in the land- 



2 BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 

escape north of Jerusalem, from which it is only five miles 
distant. Possibly, however, it was some other place not 
yet identified. Elkanah had two wives; Hannah, his 
favourite, who had no children, and Peninnah, who had a 
family. To be childless, and especially to have no son, is 
a sore trial in the East, so that Hannah had her own 
troubles, in spite of the love borne her by her husband. 
In accordance with the command of the Law^ Elkanah 
was in the habit of going yearly, with his household, to 
" worship and to sacrifice to Jehovah of- hosts," at Shiloh, 
where the Tabernacle had been set up ; a place deserted 
even in Samuel's later years, and now known only by the 
ancient name clingiug to it, and by some heaps of very old 
stone walls, in a district of low hills and fruitful hollows. 
At this time, the High Priest was a venerable old man, Eli, 
who was assisted, or should have been so, in his duties, by 
his two priest-sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who, however, 
were a scandal rather than an ornament to their office. 
But the feast had few joys for Hannah, who felt the taunts 
of her rival at her childlessness very deeply. A son, how- 
ever, was at last granted her in answer to earnest prayer ; 
Samuel, the child " asked of God." Three years passed, 
and the infant had been weaned.^ He was old enough 
now to be carried to Shiloh, and there, was formally con- 
secrated to the public service of God by his mother, in 
accordance with a vow made before his birth. It is not 
likely, however, that he was left at the tabernacle so early, 
for he would have been only a burden while so young, 
and the training by a Hebrew parent was expected to 
continue till the child was thirteen. But from that time, 
at latest, he was handed over to Eli, with the customary 

1 Exod. xxxiv. 23 ; Deut. xvi. 16. - 2 Mace, vii, 27. 



BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 3 

offering, and left to grow up in his charge, Hannah taking 
care to remind Eli, that the lad had been given her after 
a promise on her part, that he would be devoted to God ; 
she being the woman he had noticed, years before, praying 
for a son. The hymn in which she records her gratitude 
to Jehovah, for making her a mother, reveals a character 
foreshadowing that of her famous child ; the first of three 
brothers and two sisters, of whom, however, nothing is told 
us. Left in Shiloh, young Samuel still remained dear to 
his mother's heart. Year by year, as she came to the 
annual sacrifice, a mother's love was shown by her bringing 
for her boy a new linen ephod, the mark of a priest, though 
he was not of priestly birth, his father being only a Levite, 
and it is noteworthy that the last notice of him describes 
his wearing such a " coat," as if the love of his mother 
had made it dear to him as long as he lived. Meanwhile, 
the child grew on, justifying all Hannah's fond expectations. 
But matters went from bad to worse in the family of Eli. 
His sons were scandalous priests, and brought religion into 
contempt, by their profligacy. In the end, a " man of 
God," coming to the High Priest, their father, showed the 
gravity of the evil, by denouncing him for not having 
prevented such outrages on sacred things, and for thus 
appearing to treat lightly what he should have guarded 
most jealously. His race, he was told, would be terribly 
punished. It would be degraded from its high position, 
brought to poverty, smitten, in each generation, with early 
death, and, moreover, his two sons would die on the same 
day, by a violent end. 

That prophets, though apparently rare, still had a place 
in the social life of Israel, is shown by this incident, but 
the consecration of Samuel to the office was approaching 



4 BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 

and was destined to confer on the order, a new glory. 
His quiet days passed in such ministrations before Eli, as 
were suited to his years. Amidst the darkening times, 
his example was, perhaps, the one point of light. The 
"word of Jehovah,' that is, the voice of prophets, was 
rare in those days ; there was no widely spread " vision." 
One night, however, when Eli had lain down to sleep — the 
lamps of the seven- branched "candlestick," kindled each 
night, having still some oil, so that it was not yet morn- 
ing, Samuel heard a voice calling him. The High Priest 
being all but blind, w^ith age, it seemed as if he had waked, 
and needed some service. Answering at once, on this 
supposition, Samuel hastily rose, and running to Eli, made 
known his presence, modestly saying, " Here am I ; for 
thou calledst me." " I did not call you," said the old man; 
"lie down again." So he went back to his sleeping-mat. 
But, now, once more, the lad heard his name called, and, 
forthwith, hurried again to Eli, repeating the intimation 
of his being beside him in answer to his summons. But, 
once more, Eli had to tell him, " I did not call you, my 
son ; lie down again." What could it mean ? Samuel did 
not as yet know about Divine visitations, nor had any 
communication from God been as yet made to him. He 
must have been in a difficulty. Now, however, the voice 
sounded in the silence of the dim chamber, a third time 
— " Samuel ! " There was no room for doubt. Some one 
had called out his name thrice. A third time he stood 
beside Eli. " Here am I," said he, " for thou didst call 
me." There was no one in the place but themselves, and 
it was certain that Samuel had been named aloud. If Eli 
had not done so, it must have been God who had called 
him. " Samuel," said the priest, therefore, " go, lie down ; 



BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 5 

it is no other than Jehovah who has spoken to you. If 
He call you again, say, Speak, Jehovah ; for Thy servant 
heareth." A little after, " Samuel, Samuel," twice repeated, 
filled the heart of the lad with awe, but he was able to do 
as Eli had directed, answering — " Speak ; for Thy servant 
heareth." Then followed a fearful repetition of the curse 
on Eli and his house, sounded already, as a warning, by 
the " man of God," but evidently neglected by the High 
Priest. It was too awful, to tell the unfortunate object of 
it. Morning came, and Samuel, as usual, opened the doors 
of the Tabernacle, but he could not venture to deliver the 
dreadful message. ISToticing his silence, and knowing that 
a communication from God had been made to him, the 
High Priest at last called him, and demanded to be told all 
that had been said by the Almighty, imprecating on the 
lad whatever evil had been threatened, if he hesitated to 
reveal every word. A full disclosure followed, memorable 
for the admirable spirit in which Eli received it. " It 
is Jehovah," said he, meekly, " let Him do what seemeth 
Him good." News of such a weighty honour, paid by God 
to so young a lad, must have spread over all the land. 
Samuel was still in early youth, but it was clear that even 
while thus so young, God had chosen him as a prophet 
specially to be heeded. Fresh communications, moreover, 
were from time to time vouchsafed to him, and all he said 
was found so exactly true, that there could be no doubt of 
his being the mouthpiece of the Lord to His people. From 
Dan to Beersheba, men recognised in him a medium of 
Divine revelations. Once more, in the son of faithful 
Hannah, God had visited Israel. 



THE FALL OF SHILOH. 

Historical incidents of a period so remote as the twelfth 
century before Christ must, necessarily, be very partially 
traceable, in any fulness of detail, in our day. Excava- 
tions at Lachish, however, have recently shown that the 
sea-coast plain was, even much earlier, the seat of succes- 
sive warlike races, who could not fail to trouble the hill 
country behind them, now held, more or less firmly, by the 
Hebrews. In the centuries before Joshua, the highlands 
of Palestine had been the seat of nations so rich and 
powerful, as to have excited the lust of conquest in the 
Egyptian kings, and to have fallen only after a long and 
brave resistance. But they had succumbed at last, and, 
thus, had left the hills a comparatively easy prey to the 
invading Israelites. The loose tribal organisation of these 
new-comers, however, had kept them weak, and hence, 
their upland glens, and the passes through their country, 
by which caravans crossed to the east or north-east, into 
Western Asia, were an inviting bait to the fierce and 
energetic races of the lowlands. Of these, a people known, 
already, in early times, but now grown to a powerful state 
— the. Philistines — had extended their commerce in all 
directions, opening routes for it by the force of arms where 
necessary. As, however, the main channels of trade led 
through the passes of the Hebrew territory, it was a great 
matter with the lowlanders, to get these into their hands, 

6 



THE FALL OF SHILOH. 7 

which meant the subjugation of the Jewish tribes. From 
Samuel's time, therefore, and, indeed, from before it, they 
kept them either in constant fear of inroads, or held them 
in subjection, till David finally broke their power. Some 
time in the earlier years of Samuel, a grand raid into the 
hills had been planned. News came to the tribes that 
their foe was gathering at Aphek, apparently near Gath. 
As the way into the hills from this point, was by the 
Wady Surak, which opens out into the plains in a line with 
the future capital of Israel — Jerusalem — the Hebrews 
collected their levies at the head of it, near a spot known 
as Ebenezer — " the stone of help" — seemingly near Beth- 
Shemesh — "the house of the sun" — then, or afterwards, a 
frontier Philistine post. In due time the enemy appeared, 
but the Hebrews, badly prepared to oppose men fully 
armed, and trained for war, broke and fled before the 
invaders. They had not, however, lost heart, and rallied 
near the scene of their defeat. How could it be that they, 
the worshippers of Jehovah, had been beaten on His own 
territory, by the Philistine ? Sorely fallen from healthy 
religiousness, they did not realise that their misfortune 
was due to their own moral decline, and seek a return of 
God's favour by sincere repentance and confession, but 
fancied that it rose from their not having brought with 
them the sacred ark, from the Tabernacle at Shiloh. If 
it were on the spot, God could hardly, thought they, let 
His honour suffer, by giving the triumph to the gods of the 
Uncircumcised. The sheiks of the Hebrew force, there- 
fore, proposed to their men that it should be sent for, and 
this being agreed upon, messengers sped, north-east, over 
and round the hills, to Shiloh, more than thirty miles 
away, as the crow flies. Eli, at once, weakly let the sacred 



8 THE FALL OF SHILOF. 

relic be carried back ; -his two worthless sons, forsooth, 
attending, as its special guardians. A great shout greeted 
its arrival; so great, that "the earth rang again" with its 
loudness. The reason for such a commotion was soon 
known to the enemy, and for a time struck terror into their 
hearts. The mighty God who had so grievously smitten 
the Egyptians, long before, could, assuredly, break the 
power of Philistia ! But its people were of stout spirits, 
and soon regained their presence of mind. "Are we 
Philistines," they asked, " to be slaves to the Hebrews, as 
they have been to us ? I^ever ! Be strong, therefore, and 
let us quit ourselves like men, and fight to the death, 
rather than be beaten." 

When the struggle began, the effect of such vigorous 
resolution was soon apparent. Israel once more fled, 
routed utterly, this time ; the very ark being left in the 
hands of the enemy, and thousands of the Hebrews lying 
dead on the hills. The curse of God on Hophni and 
Phinehas, spoken long years before by the old prophet, 
had fallen on the two brothers, for they both had perished. 
Israel was, for the time, utterly crushed. Meanwhile, a 
Benjamite who had escaped the terrible slaughter, was 
rushing as only an Eastern runner can, from the w^ild 
whirl of the battle, with the few fugitives from its multi- 
plying disasters, and, never resting by the way, came, the 
same day, to Shiloh — his clothes rent and dust on his head 
— proclaiming, even without words, the ruin he had left 
behind him. The road stretches along a rich plain just 
before it reaches Shiloh, so that any one approaching is 
seen from quite a distance, and watchers were assuredly 
on the look out, that day, for tidings from the front. 
Eli, himself, blind through age, and heavy, had been 



THE FALL OF SHILOIL 9 

bronght to the roadside, and sat there, on a bench, 
listening eagerly for any intelligence from Ebenezer. 
Suddenly a man was seen nearing the little town, 
running wildly. He must be from the field ! As he 
advanced, across the open ground to the south, by 
which one must come from Bethel and the parts west 
of it, — then the centre of such absorbing interest, — there 
was no question of his being a runner from the battlefield. 
Man and woman, alike, rushed down the slopes, to hear 
the news, which could hardly be good, else he would 
surely have shown signs of joy. But, now, they see 
that his clothes are torn, and his bare head covered with 
earth ; signs of the deepest mourning.^ The day must 
have been lost ! Wild shrieks of despair forthwith rent 
the air, for Orientals are, at all times, demonstrative, to 
an extent of which Western nations know nothing. Eli, 
old and blind, was still sitting by the roadside, eagerly 
waiting for news, above all of the fate of the ark, which 
his conscience reproached him for having allowed to be 
taken to the field, without permission from God. But, 
now, the jaded runner, and the screaming crowd, had 
come into the village, and even Eli's deafness was horrified 
by the loud, wailing. " What news ? " asked the old priest. 
The runner, making his way to him, told all, as well 
as his spent voice and strength could force it from his 
lips. Eli was ninety-eight years old, blind and heavy, 
but the ark was dear to him even in his decay. " I have 
come from the battle," muttered the runner. "I have 
run the whole way to-day." " What has happened there, 
my son ? " stammered out the High Priest. " Israel has 
fled before the Philistines, and there has been a very 

1 Josh. vii. 6. 



10 THE FALL OF SHILOH. 

great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons, 
also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of 
God is taken ! " Calamity had been heaped on calamity, 
but each detail of the tragic recital had been borne till the 
fate of the ark was told. This, however, was too heavy 
a blow for the feeble vitality of Eli. Falling backward 
from his seat which had been set at the gate of the village, 
that he might catch the earliest news, his neck was 
broken, and an instant death spared him further sorrow. 
But the misfortunes of the day were not yet ended 
The wife of Phinehas that afternoon had a child, and 
though it was a son, and thus, otherwise, a great joy 
to an Oriental mother, she sank and died before nightfall, 
grieving, doubtless, for the death of her husband, but even 
more agonisingly because the ark was lost ! She had 
only strength enough to sigh out, that the boy's name 
should be Ichabod, that is, " without glory," for the 
" glory is departed from Israel ! " The ark was taken, 
her husband was dead, and old Eli was dead; what 
was there left to the poor stricken lady ! Even Shiloh 
itself, shared in the general ruin, for, in the Psalms, 
we read^ "they provoked Him (God) to anger with 
their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their 
graven images. When God heard this He was wroth, 
and greatly abhorred Israel : so that He forsook the 
tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among 
men ; and delivered His strength into captivity, and 
His glory into the enemy's hand. He gave His people 
over also unto the sword ; and was wroth with His 
inheritance. The fire consumed their young men; and 
their maidens were not given to marriage. Their priests 

1 Ps. Ixxviii. 60, &c. 



THE FALL OF SHILOIL 11 

fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamenta- 
tion." From this, it would appear as if the enemy 
had advanced to Shiloh, and burnt it to the ground, 
with a great slaughter of its inhabitants, so that it was 
thenceforward deserted. In Jeremiah's time it had long 
been utterly uninhabited, and its site was only re- 
discovered in the present generation.^ 

1 Jer. Til 12 ; xxyi. d. 



SAMUEL, THE REFORMER. 

Eeligion must have fallen into a very low state, to make 
it po-sible for men like Hophni and Phinehas to officiate 
as priests till their death. But it was only one indication 
among many, that the enthusiasm for Jehovah which 
characterised the days of Joshua, had quite died away, 
leaving, at best, only isolated successors of the sincere 
worship of former times. The situation of the tribes 
among races of kindred blood, who, on every side of them, 
were zealous followers of the heathenism of Western Asia, 
was necessarily perilous to a creed which isolated them 
from all their neighbours. From Babylon, the religious 
capital of the vast regions west of the Euphrates, the 
worship of the sun, moon, and great planets, as, the 
supreme forces in nature, had early spread over Syria and 
Palestine, developing into hideous corruption, in a climate 
so conducive to sensuality, till immorality, at last, became 
part of the rites of every shrine. I^or was this unspeak- 
able foulness the only horror identified with the local 
worship. God is represented, in the Wisdom of Solomon, 
as hating " the ancient inhabitants of the land, for doing 
most odious works of sorceries, and unhallowed rites (of 
initiation), and for merciless murders of children (offered 
to their idols), and for making feasts on the flesh of human 
beings offered in sacrifice, and feasting on human blood (in 
their initiation into the ' mysteries ' of their heathenism), 

12 



SAMUEL, THE KEFORMER. 13 

and because parents killed their helpless infants with their 
own hands, to offer them to their gods." ^ The glimpse 
given of the morals of Sodom and Gomorrah, even as early 
as the days of Lot, shows a state of things terribly cor- 
rupting. It is, therefore, no wonder, to find that Israel 
soon became tainted with the vices which flourished in all 
the native communities among which they had made 
a settlement. The Phoenicians, along the Mediterranean, 
from north to south of the land ; the Canaanites of various 
names, up and down the hill country ; the races over the 
Jordan; the whole region, in fact, held up, continually, 
to the Hebrew tribes the most seductive allurements, to 
leave the Puritanism o£ their ancestors, and take life as 
they found it on every hand. The sacrifice of his daughter 
by Jephthah ; the ephod made by Gideon, from the booty 
of which he had spoiled the invading Arabs ; the images 
set up by Micah, to which a descendant of Gershom, the 
son of Moses, acted as priest ; ^ images which included "an 
ephod, and teraphim (or household gods), and a graven 
image and a molten image," ^ and the worthlessness of the 
priestly sons of Eli, are hints of a dissolution of ancient 
morals and faith, which must have made his countrymen, 
in the days of Samuel, almost as heathen as the populations 
round them. The isolation of the different tribes, each 
caring chiefly for its own little district, added to the 
disintegrating influences, by destroying largely, at least 
for the time, a feeling of common nationality and interests, 
and, with this, the healthy power of a large and worthy 
public morality, common to all. I'or it was easy to de- 
cline from the ways of the past, when communities were 
small, and unsupported by others who still cherished 

1 Wisdom xii. 3-6. '^ Judg. xviii. 30. '^ Judg-. xviii. 14. 



14 SAMUEL, THE REFORMEK. 

them ; especially when larger and more highly organised 
nations scouted those ways, as worthy only of a simple 
and ignorant race. 

Into this gross and sensual environment Samuel was 
born, but he had the priceless blessing, as we see from her 
"song," of a mother with lofty spiritual instincts, which 
clung lovingly to the pure ideals of the best period of her 
national history. We know nothing of his father, but, in 
any case, the mighty formative infiuence of a mother, on 
the character of the child, so long in her exclusive charge, 
moulded the qualities of the son, and, through him, 
created, in a larger sense than could be ascribed to Moses 
himself, the Israel of all ages since. The impressions of 
early years never leave us, and what those of Samuel were, 
in respect to religion, we see from the incident of his first 
revelation from God. In his case, the child was, emphati- 
cally, the father of the man. As he grew to manhood, 
the lapse of his countrymen into virtual heathenism 
pointed out clearly, the special work to which his life 
should be devoted. His influence as a recognised prophet, 
naturally grew with his years, while his marked greatness 
of moral worth, and the instinctive feeling of the multitude, 
that he, above all his contemporaries, was fitted to succeed 
Eli in the high ofhce of Shaphat or Judge, raised him, 
after the catastrophe of Shiloh, to that supreme dignity. 
How many of the tribes acknowledged his authority is 
not told us, but, assuredly, only some of them did so. The 
rivalries of all tribal governments; that fatal but inevit- 
able result of the parochial conception of things misnamed 
Home Eule ; had divided the septs of Israel hopelessly, 
ever since the healthy bond of a strong central authority 
had been lost, on the death of Joshua. The clans of 



SAMUEL, THE REFORMER. 15 

Scotland and of Ireland prove what such a political con- 
stitution brings with it- — the rule of a petty chief, the 
poverty and degradation of the mass of the tribe, and 
constant feuds with the tribes around. The book of 
Judges shows that even the most famous rulers, of the 
time it embraces, had only a very local authority, though 
for a moment, perhaps, as in the case of Deborah and 
Gideon, there was a wider rally against a dangerous 
enemy. But Dan, Asher, and Reuben, who were at a 
distance from the districts suffering from the Canaanites, 
are expressly said not to have joined Barak, and the glory 
of following Gideon is assigned only to Asher, Naphtali, 
and Manasseh.^ The Arab rule by sheiks was, in fact, 
all that was known, and no one who has seen what this 
implies, will think it strange that the Hebrews sank under 
it, till they were scarcely recognisable as the fierce Puritan 
race, that had swept like a whirlwind, under Joshua, from 
one victory to another. To restore the reign of law was 
a first essential, in such an age, and hence we find Samuel 
holding courts at Mizpeh, his own home, at Bethel, ten 
miles north-east of it, and at Gilgal, in the Jordan valley, 
about eighteen miles to the east of Mizpeh. So limited, 
however, was the sphere in which even he could exercise 
authority ; so completely independent, and broken off from 
the central kernel of the nation, were the bulk of the 
tribes, even under Samuel. He seems, however, gradually 
to have extended his power, for we find his son, in his 
father's old age, judging at Beersheba, on the extreme 
south of the country. 

But the prophet, in his little sphere, exercised kingly 
authority ; summoning great gatherings of the people from 

1 Judg. V. 7. 



16 SAMUEL, THE REFORMER. 



far and wide, to Mizpeli, as occasion required, and acting, 
there, as their unchallenged head. It was he, also, who 
chose Saul, as the first king, and anointed David as his 
successor. His position, as the leader of the nation, was, 
indeed, unquestioned. But it is characteristic of him, that 
his bearing was, at all times, that of a servant of God, and 
that, while others might be contented, like the heathen 
round, with a merely ritual religion, he anticipated the 
words of our Lord, that true religion was that, only, which 
was rendered in spirit and in truth. At Mizpeh, he 
gathers the tribes that he may pray " for them to Jehovah," 
and the result of his bearing was a public confession by 
the nation, of its sin ; a great step towards a sincere refor- 
mation. When Saul has been chosen as king, he tells the 
people that their prosperity, under him, depends on their 
fearing and obeying God.^ In dismissing them, he repeats 
his counsel, in memorable words , " I will teach you the 
good and the right way : only fear Jehovah, and serve Him 
in truth, with all your heart." ^ When Saul is rejected, 
his words are very striking. " Hath Jehovah," he asks, " as 
great delight in burnt-offerings, as in obeying the voice of 
Jehovah ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to 
hearken than the fat of rams." ^ 

Such teaching, continued through a long life, and sup- 
ported by a venerable consistency of practice, must have 
been of immense weight, in restoring a healthier religious 
feeling in Israel, but Samuel did not leave this great end, 
to the necessarily limited sphere of his personal example 
and precepts. His countrymen owed to him the priceless 
benefit, of an organised system of religious instruction, by 
his institutions known as " the Schools of the Prophets ; " 

1 1 Sam. xii. 14. ^1 Sam. xii. 23, 24. s i Sam. xv. 22. 



SAMUEL, THE REFORMER. 17 

organisations, apparently, very similar to our theological 
colleges. We find one in Eamah, during his lifetime,^ for 
<* Naioth" means the " home " or " school " of the prophets. 
Others are mentioned, elsewhere; as at Bethel, Jericho, 
Gilgal, and various places ; ^ their usefulness being so great 
that they continued to the latest period of the national 
history. The " scholars " in some were very numerous.^ 

A head prophet was over each ; its " father " or 
" master ; " * the students being called his " sons." What 
subjects occupied them we do not know, beyond the 
certainty that they had relations to the various details of 
religious life and practice. They gave themselves, how- 
ever, to a large extent, to music, for use in connection 
with religious exercises, and, no doubt, spent their lives, 
after they left their communities, in teaching throughout 
the land, and otherwise discharging the duties of clergy. 
A faithful body of Jehovah worshippers was thus pre- 
served in even the darkest times, and, hence, there was 
always " a godly seed," from which new revivals sprang, 
after the deepest national declensions. Samuel lives, 
to-day, in his great work, for, without him, it is difficult 
to think how the faith, once cherished by the Hebrews, 
could have been kept from dying out. He rekindled 
the sacred torch, and passed it on to all the generations 
since. 

1 1 Sam. xix. 19, 20. 2 2 Kings ii. 3 ; iv. 38 ; vi. 1. 

2 1 Kings xviii. 4 ; xxii. 6 ; 2 Kings ii. 16. 

* 1 Sam. X. 12 ; xix. 20 ; 2 Kings ii. 3. 



INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 

When I was in Southern Palestine, the men with my 
tent and luggage, one day failed to come to the appointed 
halting-place, having lost their way, and I was thus forced 
to seek shelter for the night, in the " castle " of the sheik 
of Beit Jebrin ; an old villain, famous in past years for 
waylaying and robbing every one who crossed his district, 
but, now, in terror of the Turkish governor of Hebron, 
who had sent soldiers against him, and given him a 
liberal experience of the harrying and plunder he had 
himself inflicted on so many. It was a tall square 
"peel," like those of Northumberland, and hardly in 
better condition. High stone walls enclosed a courtyard, 
from which, as I afterwards found, stairs of the most 
perilous frailness and the most aboriginal roughness of 
carpentry, led to an upper storey. Here, an equally frail 
creation of the adze and auger, led to the apartments of 
the women, which occupied a stone wing of the "peel." 
The entrance to this formidable, though rather tumble- 
down stronghold, was by an archway from the road, with 
heavy gates ; no light ; and abundant proofs, underfoot, of 
its use by more than one kind of quadruped. Making 
my way beyond a high wall which rose, on the left hand, 
to the spring of rude arches far overhead, I found that 
it turned to the left, at a right angle, forming one side 
of a rough rectangular space, regarded, apparently, as the 

18 



INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 19 

hall of audience, for which its ample size well fitted it. 
What daylight struggled into this, must have forced its 
way down the long murky arched entrance, and, then, 
back into the wide " audience chamber," or climbed into 
it through the round arched spaces, above the side 
wall, supporting the floor overhead, which were quite 
open. I did not see any windows, though there may 
have been one or two narrow unglazed openings in 
the end wall, but if so, they were high up. A dim, small 
lamp burned in a niche, low down, in this, but there was 
also a glimmer from a fire of thistle stalks and the like, 
in a long horseshoe depression at one side of the chamber ; 
the floor of which, roughly paved with stone, was so raised 
everywhere else, that the horseshoe formed, all round, 
except at the open lower end, a bench, along which the 
guests and dignitaries of the district might hang their 
legs, at least in sight of the minute conflagration intended 
to heat the wild apartment. That night, as it happened, 
there was a great gathering of the " elders " of Beit Jibrin. 
One of the worshipful community was " wanted " by the 
governor of Hebron, for robbery, and two horse soldiers — • 
fine big Kurds, from far distant Armenia — were present 
from headquarters, to arrest the scoundrel. The sheik 
sat on a piece of carpet over which a cushion had been 
laid, to make his old limbs a trifle comfortable ; his place 
being at the head of the long horseshoe, a little back, at 
the wall. The " elders " and the two cavalry men sat 
with their legs towards the fire, which one of the digni- 
taries, from time to time, poked into a momentary gleam. 
On my entering, the sheik, poor old man, rose, and con- 
tinued standing till I was seated beside him ; that is, in 
the place of honour. Of course, I had nothing to do bub 



20 INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 

listen. Tongues went glibly, and all were hugely interested, 
for an Oriental group ; the discussion, as I afterwards 
found, being on no less momentous a point than the price 
to be paid the two soldiers, for returning to Hebron with 
the report that the criminal, who all this time was 
present, could not be found ! They finally got their 
money, and set out for the city of Abraham next morning, 
without a prisoner, but with me in their company, glad 
to avail myself of the protection, in a lawless region, 
which the sight of them afforded. 

I have told this incident because it, in some measure, 
helps to bring back to us, the state of things in the old 
days of Samuel. "Elders," headed by a sheik, then, as 
now, formed the only government of the country com- 
munities, and there were few or no towns ; even the 
future king finding his occupation in the humble duties 
of a rude, half pastoral, half agricultural life ; looking 
after strayed asses one day, and driving, or, rather, lead- 
ing, the cattle, that is, a flock of sheep and goats, from 
the open commons, called in the Old Testament "the 
field," on another. It was " the elders of Israel," we are 
told, who came to Samuel as the spokesmen of the people, 
and what these elders might be we see from my experi- 
ence. Their rule means, simply, the rudest form of 
municipal organisation ; dealing with the petty details of 
an encampment, a village, or a hamlet, and yet subordinate 
to the despotism of the sheik ; the system, in fact, found 
among tribes so elementary in their ideas as the ISTorth 
American Indians. It can afford no protection against 
more centralised authority, uniting weak tribes into a 
powerful people, and is, indeed, only suited for the pri- 
mitive state of society in which it still prevails. An 



INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 21 

example of this occurred while I was at Gaza. A man 
of an Arab tribe encamped near Beersheba, had been 
murdered by a fellow-tribesman, who had fled to the 
tents of a neighbouring, but independent tribe. The 
sheik of the murdered man's tribe was, forthwith, sum- 
moned before the local governor at Gaza, and ordered to 
go after the fugitive and arrest him. I heard the whole 
proceedings. The sheik was a fine-looking old man, 
with all the instinctive dignity natural to the Oriental 
of every degree. Listening quietly till the governor 
ended, he very composedly asked if the caimacan was 
prepared to send five hundred troops, to help him to carry 
out the order. But the governor had no troops to send, 
and told him so. " Then," said the sheik, " I will do 
nothing," and walked away, no one stopping him ; to set 
out, forthwith, for the encampment of his tribe. I after- 
wards had coffee in the tent of the sheik of the tribe in 
which the murderer had found refuge, which had moved 
to a position from which it could readily place its flocks 
in security, in case any attempt were made against it, to 
get at the criminal. With such a triumph of Home Eule 
prevailing, Israel was as helpless against any better 
organised people as the old Irish tribes or the Scotch 
clans were against " the Saxons." Nor was internal pro- 
gress more attainable, for what could such independent 
]Dari&h communities do, in developing a higher civilisation ? 
The resources of a united people, the market thus offered 
for not only necessities but luxuries, the power of mutual 
protection secured, the prevalence of a common law, the 
extinction of, miserable local feuds and jealousies, and the 
inspiration of a sense of wide national ideals, are essential 
to the rise of any tribal or poor communities from tli_ir 



22 INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 

isolation, with its manifold weakness, and equally help- 
less poverty. What could the barren highlands of Scot- 
land do for their population, if cut off, in any measure, 
from the rich openings of the lowlands, and of the neigh- 
bouring England ? What could the wretched territory 
of Judali and Simeon do, alone, compared with what 
might be done, were they linked in a friendly unity with 
the rich Ephraim, and the green North ? Of course, even 
the wisest measures might be neutralised, as the erection 
of a common monarchy in Israel was, by the folly of 
despotism, and the jealousy of the two leading tribes, but 
the fact remains that, even with this cutting of. the little 
country into two again, both parts attained a power and 
dignity never enjoyed when the merely tribal government 
prevailed, and retained their national life for three and 
four hundred years respectively, after the great Secession. 
Feeling all this, and seeing that the sons of Samuel, far 
from being like their father, stooped to take bribes as 
judges, and " turned aside after lucre, and perverted 
judgment," the heads of the tribes naturally sought to 
change a form of constitution, which had worked so 
badly, and to have the form introduced, which had made 
the little nations round comparatively strong ; to have a 
king, in short, " to judge them as kings judged all the 
nations." But Samuel had grown up under the old 
system of judges, chosen as circumstances prompted, and 
regarded the proposal to have a king, as an invasion of 
the rights of Jehovah ; the Great Suzerain of His people. 
Yet, had he been free to see things in a clear unprejudiced 
light, he would have remembered that Israel had been 
virtually under a king, as long as Moses and Joshua lived, 
and that it had won all its glory during that period. He 



INTRODUCTION OF MONARCHY. 23 

saw better than others the darker side of the new popular 
wish, but had no eyes for its merits. " This," said he to 
the people, " will be the kind of king you will have. He 
will press your sons, and use them as his charioteers, his 
horsemen, and the runners before his chariot. And he 
will brigade others, as he thinks fit, into thousands, and 
fifties, and put them under officers, and make them plough 
his kingly domains, and reap his harvests, and forge the 
weapons for his forces, and the equipment of his chariots, 
and he will press your daughters, for perfume makers in 
his court, and for cooks and bakers. And he will seize 
your fields, your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even the 
best of them, and give them to his retainers. And he 
will make you give him, besides, a tenth of the grain from 
the fields he has left you, and a tenth from your remaining 
vineyards, and assign them to his officials and servants. 
And he will press to his service of other kinds, your man- 
slaves and your women-slaves, and your best oxen, and 
your asses. He will, moreover, levy from you every 
tenth sheep you have, and as to yourselves, you will be 
no better than his slaves. You are crying out now for a 
king, but when you have got one, you will cry out for the 
old times, when you had not as yet chosen monarchy. 
But Jehovah will not hear you." All this was too faith- 
fully realised, but the evils of the past, and of the 
moment, outweighed any unknown dangers of the future. 
Samuel could make no impression on the multitude. They 
were set on being like neighbouring races. Their pride of 
nationality had been waked by Samuel himself, and a 
nation without a king seemed less a nation, than when 
able to boast of one. So the prophet at last gave way, 
and Saul became, by popular choice, the first king of Israel. 



THE ELECTION OF SAUL, 

Since the people were determineH to have a king, it fell 
to Samuel, as the head of the nation for the time, to nomi- 
nate some fit person for their approval ; the kings of Israel 
being elected in an assembly of the tribes, as those of Eng- 
land, nominally were, to the time of William the Conqueror, 
who required his accession to be ratified by popular acclaim 
at Westminster, It was a grave responsibility, and even 
Samuel, with all his knowledge of men, and all the advan- 
tages of his lofty position, made, as it proved, according 
to his own later judgment, a questionable choice. In the 
part of the tribe of Benjamin attached to Ephraim, if the 
two words translated " A Benjamite," in 1 Samuel ix. 1, 
do not rather mean, as some fancy, " a man of Jemini," 
lived a man well-to-do, according to the ideas of the age ; 
that is, rich in land, and the living wealth of a landholder. 
Kish — for that was his name — must indeed, have been 
one of the chief men of the day, for his genealogy is given, 
back to his great-great-grandfather; a mark of the im- 
portance of the family for successive generations. In the 
patriarchal home of this primitive magnate, a son had 
grown up, of such splendid physical beauty, as to have 
become more famous for it, far and near, than he, in his 
modesty, dreamed. Indeed, it might well be so, for he 
was taller than any man in the land, from his shoul- 
ders, upward, and magnificent, otherwise, in proportion ; 

24 



THE ELECTION OF SAUL. 25 

assuredly, in the words of the Scriptures, " a choice young 
man, and a goodly." 

It so happened that in the months during which Samuel 
was meditating over his great commission, to select a 
personage suited for the desired king, the she-asses of 
Kish, left, no doubt, as is still the custom, to graze in 
the open country, strayed, no one knew whither, and Saul 
was sent, with a man, to find them. Eanging without 
success through the hill-country of Ephraim, as far, ap- 
parently, as Shechem, he turned south again to the Ben- 
jamite district, with no better result. The kind heart of 
Saul was, now, anxious lest his father should think him 
lost as well as the beasts — a fear which speaks of a very 
unsettled state of things in the country at large — and 
proposed to return home. But the ready wdt of the man 
promptly suggested a last effort, which involved little 
delay and promised well. They were close to the village 
in which Samuel lived. He was a man of God, said the 
attendant, and honourable ; all his words came surely 
to pass ; perhaps he could tell them where the asses were. 
The whole incident is delightfully primitive. The great 
prophet consulted about finding stray asses ; the future 
king distracted by not finding them ; the difficulty in the 
way, from the bread they had brought from home with 
them having run out, so that they had nothing to give 
the seer, as the present, without which no Oriental ap- 
proaches a dignified personage ; the escape from their 
perplexity by the man finding a quarter of a shekel in his 
girdle — a piece of silver worth sixpence : the king-to-be 
having no money at all ; the climb up the loug slope to 
Eamah ; the questioning some young women, coming down 
to the spring near the hill top to draw water, whether 



26 THE ELECTION OF SAUL 

the seer was at home, and their answer that he had just 
come to the village, to preside at a feast on the flesh of 
a sacrifice, to be offered that day in the village chapel, or 
" high-place ;" alike breathe an air of the most charming 
antique simplicity. Samuel, by the way, saw no harm in 
high-places, which were scattered then, as their counter- 
parts, the small, domed, white-washed shrines, still are, 
over all the land, so that no landscape is without one. 
They would catch him, the girls said, looking fondly, we 
may be sure at the grand young man who addressed them, 
if they went into the village at once, before he passed up 
to the high-place to eat, for the people would not begin 
the feast till he had blessed the sacrifice. After that, 
the guests invited would eat. Starting off at once, Saul 
met Samuel at the village gate, on his way up to the 
high-place. A premonition had already possessed the 
prophet, sent from above, that a Benjamite he would see 
that day, was the destined king, and the look of Saul 
assured him that he was the choice thus marked out. 
The two w^ere unknown to each other, but in answer to 
an inquiry by Saul for the seer, he found he was speak- 
ing to him. To his astonishment, Samuel presently told 
him to go before him to the high-place, and that he 
was to eat with him that day, and stay with him over- 
night. As to the asses ; they were found. He would 
be free to return home next day, but, before doing so, 
the great man had matters of importance to speak over, 
with him. " Though Saul did not know it," he added, 
" all that was desirable for Israel was in him and in his 
father's house." But the modesty of Saul could not 
understand such language from such a source. "Why 
do you speak in such a way to me ? " said lie ; " am I 



THE ELECTION OF SAUL. 27 

not a Benjamite, and, thus, of the smallest of our tribes ? 
and is not my branch of the tribe the smallest of all 
its branches ? " The only reply was, to lead Saul and 
his man into the rude chamber in which the equally 
primitive feast was to be held — for they had now reached 
it — and set the two — the king-to-be and his man, in 
the two places of highest honour, though thirty of the 
chief men of the little town were the already invited 
guests. Moreover, by Samuel's express order, the choice 
pieces — the rump and the fat tail, reserved for the most 
honoured guest, were set before Saul. The feast over, 
the prophet took the wondering Benjamite home with 
him, and leading him up to the flat roof, as most secluded, 
and the coolest spot in the hot weather of the season, 
caused a sleeping mat to be spread there for him, and 
on this, Saul, no doubt wearied enough, rested till day. 
The morning was just breaking, when the voice of Samuel, 
calling from below, woke the sleeper, who was now to be 
allowed to go home. In a few minutes both were on the 
way down to the village gate, but, now, the man was 
requested to go on, while the two lingered for a time 
behind. Quite by themselves, Samuel produced " a vial " 
of oil, and pouring it on Saul's head, kissed him, with 
the startling greeting that he was " the anointed of 
God," over Israel. In that age, everything was expected 
to be contirmed by some " sign," and one was accordingly 
granted to Saul; as it were, supporting the authority 
of Samuel for what he had done. He was told that 
at the oak of Tabor, a spot now unknown, he would 
meet three men going up to Bethel, which apparently 
had, from remote times, been a famous "high-place," 
to offer, before God, three kids, three loaves of bread, 



28 THE ELECTION OF SAUL. 

and a skin of wine. These would salute him with the 
customary inquiry after his welfare or " peace," and 
give him two of the three loaves. Then he would come 
to " Gibeah of God," where the Philistines had a post, 
and as he approached the town, he would meet a company 
of prophets coming down from the " high-place," or local 
shrine; some of them before the others, playing, one 
on a psaltery or twelve-stringed triangular harp, a 
second with a tambourine, a third with a reed pipe, 
and a fourth with a cither, or guitar, while the others, 
behind them, were " prophesying ; " which, in this case, 
with music sounding in advance, must have meant highly 
wrought outbursts of religious feeling, whether in chants 
or ecstatic utterances. Carried away by the excitement 
within and before him, Saul would be affected as these 
were, and "prophesy" with them. He was afterwards 
to go down to the holy place of Gilgal, on the Jericho 
slope, and wait seven days for Samuel, who would come 
to offer burnt and peace offerings, and tell him what 
he was to do. All this, we are told, happened as predicted. 
An uncle of Saul, it appears, lived at Gibeah, which seems 
also to have been the home of Kish, but the anointed 
of Samuel carefully avoided alluding, in his intercourse 
with him, to what had passed between himself and the 
prophet. The time appointed for the journey to Gilgal 
does not, however, seem to have been fixed, so that Saul 
next comes before us at his father's house, busy driving 
the plough in the fields, as if nothing special had 
happened. 

The development of the monarchical agitation transfers 
the scene, in its further stage, once more to Mizpeh; 
very possibly, the long high slope now known as Nebi 



THE ELECTION OF SAUL. 29 

Samwil. Thither the people were again summoned by 
Samuel. Still regarding the wish for a king as a rejection 
of God, but bowing to a public demand which he could 
not resist, the prophet had ordered them to present 
themselves " before the Lord," by tribes, each marshalled 
in the subdivisions known as "thousands." Out of the 
whole, not Ephraim, the su]3reme tribe, but Benjamin, 
the smallest, was taken, no doubt to the astonishment 
of the assembly. Then, from Benjamin, the lot fell on 
the sub-clan of Matri. This was next made to pass 
before Samuel, man by man, and, lo ! the choice ultimately 
fell on Saul, who, however, was nowhere to be found. 
" To inquire of Jehovah," whatever that means, was 
the custom in even the smallest difficulties, in those 
days, and it was resorted to now, with the result, we 
are told, that Jehovah answered, " Behold he has hidden 
himself among the stuff;" that is, among the wallets 
of food and skins of wine or sour milk, which the 
multitude had brought with them. Off, at once, ran 
eager feet, to the piles of commissariat, and finding him 
there, brought him, forthwith, to Samuel, who set him 
before the excited throng, every eye in which turned to 
the one spot, to see their future king. There he stood, 
above every one round ; a king every inch ! " Behold the 
man whom Jehovah has chosen," cried Samuel ; " a man like 
whom there is not another among all the people." Even 
the prophet was for the time enthusiastic, in spite of his 
stern conservatism. As to the multitude, they were beside 
themselves for joy, and rent the air with loud and lono- 
shouts of " God save the king ! " But all was not yet over. 
Samuel had counsel to offer, as to the constitution of the 
new monarchy. His exposition, indeed, was given forth 



30 THE ELECTION OF SAUL. 

as of permanently binding force, on king and people alike, 
and only when this had been finished, and duly engrossed 
in " the Book" of the kingdom, which was, henceforth, to 
be laid up " before Jehovah," did he dismiss the assembly. 
Some " children of Belial " alone murmured ; men of no 
weight in the land. Bound Saul, meanwhile, a band of 
the most valiant men of the tribes ranged themselves, as 
a guard of honour. Escorted by these, he returned " home, 
to Gibeah," the land of Kish being evidently beside that 
town, and resumed the modest labours of the paternal 
homestead. When next we hear of him, he is " coming 
after the herd," from the open country, where they had 
been feeding. So simple were manners in these remote 
days ! They remind one of the equally simple ways de- 
scribed in Homer, 



SAMUEL'S PARTING ADDRESS. 

The election of a king, involving as it did, a complete 
constitutional revolution in the hitherto prevailing tribal 
governraent of Israel, was so grave a change, that Samuel 
appears to have taken the opportunity of Saul's return 
to Gilgal from his victorious raid against Nahash, " the 
Serpent," King of Ammon, to repeat the solemn service of 
his confirmation on the throne, which had already been 
formally carried out at Mizpeh.^ To Gilgal, therefore, the 
people were summoned, and there they once more acclaimed 
Saul their king, ratifying their act by solemn offerings on 
the local altar, amidst great rejoicings ; Samuel, appa- 
rently, acting as priest, for there is no mention of any 
other prominent person. But his office, as ruler of the 
nation, was now over. Henceforth, he was, nominally at 
least, to take a subordinate position, though, in reality, 
leaving Saul only the name of king, and himself exercising 
alL his past supremacy. He could not, however, resign 
even the outward symbols of power without asking a 
solemn judgment on his life, as hitherto their head. 
There was nothing in his career of which he was ashamed, 
and he wished to have a clear verdict to that effect 
from the people. Gathering the multitude, therefore, 
before him, he addressed them in words which are touch- 
ing even now, after all the centuries that have passed 
since. 

1 1 Sam. xi. 14. 
31 



32 Samuel's PARimG address 

"Behold, said lie, "I have listened to your demand, in 
all its fulness, and have made a king over you. And, 
now, this king is before you," pointing, we may suppose, 
to the grand figure of Saul, by his side, " but I am old 
and grey headed, as the age of my sons, whom you know, 
testifies. As to my life, it has been spent in your sight, 
from my childhood till now. Behold, here I stand. If 
any one has aught to lay to my charge, in all my past 
career, let him come forward, and witness against me 
before Jehovah, and before His anointed king, Saul. 
Whose ox have I taken ? Whose ass have I taken ? Have 
I ever used my office as judge to confiscate the least 
fraction of any one's property ? Whom have I defrauded, 
for my own advantage, by unrighteous decisions ? Whom 
have I oppressed by using the power of my office 
wrongfully, to his injury ? From whose hands have I 
accepted any ransom in money, to free him, unjustly, from 
deserved death, or any bribe, even to the worth of a pair 
of shoes, that the gilt should blind my eyes to impartial 
justice ? Witness against me, any of you, if you can charge 
me with such deeds, and I will restore to you all I have 
wrongfully taken." Forthwith rose a shout from the 
whole assembly, that the noble old man had neither de- 
frauded them, nor oppressed them, nor ever taken bribes 
from any one. " Jehovah, then, be witness against you," 
replied he, "and let His anointed be witness, this day, 
that ye have found no cause of blame against me." " So 
let it be," answered the multitude. " Jehovah, w^ho raised 
Moses and Aaron to be heads of your fathers, and who 
brought up your ancestors from Egypt, be witness between 
us," replied Samuel ; " and now that you have vindicated 
my uprightness," he went on, " stand still where you are, 



Samuel's parting address. 33 

while I recall to you, for your good, hereafter, all the 
gracious acts of Jehovah to you, and to your fathers, in 
the past. "When our people were in sore trouble in Egypt 
Jehovah sent Moses and Aaron, who brought them out of 
it, and gave them this land as their own. Then, when they 
forgot their God, so that He sold them into the hand of 
Sisera, and of the Philistines, and of the King of Moab, 
and their misery had made them cry to Him for deliver- 
ance, how merciful was He ! As soon as they said ' We 
have sinned, for we have forsaken Jehovah, and have 
served the Baals and the Ashtoreths of the heathen, but, 
now, if God deliver us from our enemies, we will serve 
Him,' He sent Gideon and Barak, and, lastly, myself, 
and overthrew their enemies, and made their land safe to 
them. Yet, now, when Nahash, the Ammonite, attacked 
you; instead of trusting the God who had delivered you 
in times past, you said, ' Nay ; we shall not any more 
look to judges raised up for the occasion, but shall have a 
king,' when Jehovah was already your king. Now there- 
fore, see the graciousness of God. He has given you the 
king you so desired, although you have slighted Him in 
having such a wish 1 But, now that he is appointed, let 
me tell you how you may prosper under him. If you fear 
Jehovah and serve Him, and obey His voice, and both 
you and your king keep on following the Lord your God, 
all will be well. But if you disobey the voice of Jehovah, 
and rebel against His commands, His hand will be against 
you as it was against your fathers, and also against your 
king." As, however, in those ages, nothing was thought to 
be conclusive, in any religious solemnity, without some 
extraordinary recognition of the Divine assent to it, by a 
supernatural sign, Samuel was now prepared to give them 



34 SAMUEL'S PARTING ADDRESS. 

one. " To prove that I have spoken the mind of God," cried 
the prophet, " stand still, where you are, and you will see a 
great wonder, which Jehovah will do before you. Is it not 
at this time wheat harvest, when the rains are long over, and 
only bright skies are known ? Well, although this be so, 
I will call on Jehovah, and He will send thunder and rain. 
It will show you that you have done very wickedly in 
asking a king, and it will also show you, that He sanctions 
all I have said in His name." It was the month of May 
or of June. A rain storm is most uncommon at this 
season, but now, on Samuel " calling unto Jehovah," a wild 
tempest of thunder and rain broke over the landscape. 
To the Israelite, thunder was the voice of the Almighty, 
as we often see in the Psalms. Its rolling terrors tilled 
every heart with alarm, for did it not show that God was 
ever at hand to punish His enemies ? A loud cry, there- 
fore, rose from the crowd, that Samuel should intercede 
for them, lest some punishment should fall on them, for 
the sin of having asked a king. "Fear not," replied 
Samuel, "you have, indeed, done this wicked act, yet only 
turn ye not aside from following Jehovah, but serve Him 
with all your heart: turn not aside after idols, which 
cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing ! For if ye 
be thus true to Him, Jehovah will not forsake you, for 
His great name's sake, for it has pleased Him to make 
you His people. As for me, God forbid that I should not 
pray for you as you ask, but I will, besides, serve the 
Lord myself, and thus teach you the good and the right 
way. Only fear Jehovah, and serve Him in truth, with 
all your heart, remembering what great things He has 
done for you. If, however, ye shall act wickedly, ye shall 
be swept away, ye and your king," Henceforth, Saul 



Samuel's parting address. 35 

was nominally monarch, but so little did he actually 
reign, that the very next chapter informs us, of Samuel's 
announcing to him that " his kingdom would not continue," 
because, when Samuel had told him to wait for him in 
Gilgal, for seven days, he had, at last, acted independently, 
though in the most trying circumstances. He had found, 
in fact, that *' after tarrying the seven days, according to 
the set time that Samuel had appointed, Samuel had not 
come." His offence consisted in, himself, offering a sacri- 
fice, to propitiate Jehovah, and win His help against the 
Philistines, who had penetrated into the heart of the land 
in great force, terrifying the people so that they fled to the 
hill-caves, pits, thickets, rocks, and heights, and, indeed, 
anywhere, to save themselves. The band round Saul, 
moreover, — the one means of resisting the awful invader, 
— had melted away from his side, through the agonising 
delay imposed on them by the prophet. David and 
Solomon offered sacrifices, so that Saul's acting as priest 
could not have been his offence, while, as to David, he 
never allowed any prophet to interfere with his poli- 
tical affairs, though open to their counsels as spiritual 
advisers. 



REJECTION OF SAUL. 

" The word of the Lord," or, rather, " of Jehovah," we are 
told, came " unto Samuel," but it is not said how it came. 
At times, it may be, there was an audible voice ; but the 
favoured one usually received the Divine communication 
in his sleep, by some form of vision and impression on 
the mind. A " deep sleep " fell on Abram before the 
great revelation made to him of the future of his race.^ 
Samuel had his first disclosures from God after he had 
lain down to sleep,^ and Eliphaz the Temanite tells us 
that " a word (or oracle) stole on him, and his ear caught 
its soft sound when dreams wake visions of the night, 
when deep sleep falls on men. Fear came on me and trem- 
bling which made all my bones shake. Then a spirit passed 
before me, making all the hair of my flesh stand up." 
Presently it stood still, but he could not distinguish its 
features, — it was only a form. " Then I heard a still 
small voice. Shall mortal man be just before his Maker ? " ^ 
In some such way, we may imagine, the " word " came to 
Samuel ; for it speaks immediately after, of his crying out, 
in prayer, to Jehovah, all night. 

That God should be spoken of as "repenting" His 
appointment of Saul as king, can only be an instance of 
applying to the Divine Being the characteristics of men, 
to help our minds to realise matters more clearly. " God 

1 Gen. XV. 12. 2 1 Sam. iii. 3. 3 Job iv. 12-17. 

36 



EEJECTION OF SAUL. 37 

is not a man, that He should lie ; neither the son of man, 
that He should repent ; " ^ so that where it is said that He 
repents, the language is only figurative, and intended to 
represent that the result of His course towards Saul was 
such as would, in the case of man, have followed regret 
for past action, and consequent change. 

The prophet was deeply moved by the announcement of 
Saul's failure as a king. Our version says he was "grieved," 
but the Hebrew word means, rather, that he glowed with 
anger, doubtless at what he held to be Saul's violation 
of his kingly faith, which was equivalent, in his eyes, to 
treason against Jehovah, for whom the offender, at best, 
was only the earthly deputy. He had " turned back from 
following God, and had not performed His commandments." 
Of these, Samuel himself had been the mouthpiece ; so 
that, in fact, the prophet was above the king, who had to 
obey his instructions, without question, in every particular. 
That he had not done so made Samuel " wroth," — as the 
Revised Version properly translates the word. In such a 
mood, his crying to Jehovah all night could hardly have 
been for mercy on the transgressor. Was it an entreaty 
that the kingly office, which Samuel had so earnestly re- 
pudiated as out of place in Israel, and which had now 
proved, in Saul's hands, a danger to the old system of 
direct government by God through His prophets, should 
be abolished ? 

Orientals are astir with the dawn, to avoid the heat of 
the day. The king was still in the South Country, or 
Negeb, — the " dry " or " parched " district, — and had 
raised at Carmel a trophy, called " a hand " in the margin 
of the Ee vised Version, and a '' monument " in its text ; 

1 Num. xxiii. 19. 



38 REJECTION OF SAUL. 

the word " hand " being thought by some great scholars, 
from what has been found on Phoenician monuments, to 
be the emblem of prayer or thanksgiving. The erection, 
doubtless very rude indeed, — in all probability, only a 
cairn, of the stones everywhere so plentiful in Palestine, — 
was to Saul and his people what a triumphal arch is to 
us, and was intended to celebrate his victory over the 
Amalekites. Carmel was a hill village some miles south- 
east of Hebron; and in those days, — if it deserved its 
name, " the garden," — must have been much less " dry " or 
" parched " than it is to-day. The Amalekites were a wild 
Arab race, at one time very powerful in the land ; for we 
find them holding territory in the centre of the country, 
and over the whole south, to the Peninsula of Sinai, as far 
as the borders of Egypt. They had attacked Israel in the 
wild ravines of Sinai, and had hung on their rear, cutting 
off stragglers, during all the wilderness journeyings ; thus 
kindling a hatred towards their race which burned in the 
heart of the Jew from generation to generation. Still 
hostile in Saul's time, he had been ordered by Samuel to 
destroy them utterly, and he was now returning from his 
foray against them. He had surprised their huge encamp- 
ment, and had massacred the whole tribe, as far as he 
could, with the exception of the emir, Agag, who was 
taken prisoner, and reserved, that he might be put to 
death with special ignominy ; for no thought of mercy 
entered the heart of an Israelite towards the leader of a 
race so detested. He had thus glutted his fury, to his 
utmost opportunity, on the tribe itself, which would, appa- 
rently, have been annihilated, had not a remnant escaped, 
with some women and children, through rapid flight; 
living to become, in their descendants, the objects of 



EEJECTION OF SAUL. 39 

further war, for we find David attacking them,^ and the 
Simeonites, who lived in the Negeb, invading Mount Seir, 
the territory of Edoni, against them, so late as the reign 
of Hezekiah.2 Indeed, in Esther, we are told that Haman 
was an Agagite ; that is, a descendant of the line of emirs 
of Amalek, the last of their race of whom we read. 

But while Saul had ruthlessly destroyed the tribe itself, 
the temptation to save part of its immense flocks and 
herds, had been too great for him and his people. Harried 
as they had been by the Philistines, and sorely in need of 
live stock, as a farming population, they had hesitated to 
carry out Samuel's command to " devote," or utterly destroy, 
all this wealth, and had driven off the best of both sheep 
and oxen. It was in vain that Saul affected, in answer to 
the prophet's question as to his thus acting, that he had 
intended the booty to be used in sacrifice to Jehovah. He 
had been ordered to destroy it utterly, and he had not 
done so. To obey the prophet without question, as a 
subordinate obeys his superior, was demanded of him. He 
had no right to think for himself or to show any indepen- 
dence whatever. To Samuel the fault of Saul was grave, 
in his not preventing the people from keeping alive part 
of the booty, though he may well have felt afraid to 
oppose his personal will, to that of the rough militia called 
out for the occasion. He ought to have tried what he 
could to obey the command given him, and he had not 
done so. Samuel's answer was very striking. In effect, 
it was this : " You say that the people have kept alive 
part of the spoil to sacrifice to God at Gilgal" — the sacred 
stone circle in the neighourhood of Jericho, then the head- 
quarters of Jewish worship. — "Has Jehovah as great 

1 1 Sam. XXX. 17. ^ i Chron. iv. 42. 



40 liEJECTION OF SAUL. 

delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the 
voice of Jehovah ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to hearken (to the Divine voice) than the fat of rams 
(offered on the altar). For (such) rebellion (as thine, in 
not passively carrying out my commands, as the mouth- 
piece of God) is as (bad as) the sin of divination, (that is, 
seeking revelations through incantations to the dead, or 
from the flight of arrows, or the motions of entrails, and 
other heathen ways) and stubbornness, (the following of 
one's own will, rather than that of God's, in any parti- 
cular) is as the worship of (public) idols, or of teraphim, 
(or household idols)." Then came the punishment : 
" Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he 
hath also rejected thee from being king." 

The principle laid down by Samuel is the very soul and 
spirit of all religion worthy of the name, and marks the 
high moral office of the true prophet, as contrasted with 
the merely ceremonial duties of the priest. Eeligion is 
what we are, rather than what we affect by outward acts. 
The heart right, our acts also will be right ; but even 
actions in themselves right, lose their moral or spiritual 
worth, when they are not the expression of loving and 
devout loyalty to God. 



ANOINTING OF DAVID. 

Bethlehem, which is still a thriving little town, must 
have been much the same in the days of Samuel as it is in 
our own ; for the space available for houses is strictly 
marked out by the form of the hill on which they stand. 
A narrow white street winds along the slightly undulating 
top of a hill 2,555 ^^^^ above the Mediterranean, which is 
about thirty-five miles off. Eich valleys stretch out 
below, on all sides, divided, on the north, by a saddle of 
slowly rising ground, along which you approach from Jeru- 
salem. Cream-coloured limestone, easily cut, is the one 
rock of Palestine. It forms the strongly built and pleasant- 
looking flat-roofed houses, of one or two storeys, and 
furnishes, in the soil it yields when it crumbles, an inex- 
haustible wealth, from which, age after age, nature brings 
forth, round the year, varied crops of grapes, olives, 
almonds, barley, wheat, vegetables, lentils, beans, and much 
else. A shorter street, parallel with the main one, and 
connected with it, here and there, by short lanes, well- 
nigh comprises the town, round which one can walk in 
less than half-an-hour ; including much unused ground in 
the circuit. 

In this pleasant place, — with its girdle of round-topped 
hills beyond the rich valleys at its feet, and its outlook, to 
the east, on a sea of soft heights, sinking down rapidly to- 
wards the Dead Sea, which is visible nearly four thousand 

41 



42 ANOINTING OF DAVID. 

feet below Bethlehem, about fifteen miles off, with the flat 
line of tlie hills of Moab shutting in the horizon beyond, 
— there lived, about three thousand years ago, a well-to-do 
householder, who possessed land, in the town or near it, 
and had, besides, flocks pasturing on the slopes which 
stretch in every direction around, on the other side of the 
valleys. 

To this person Samuel was sent some time after the 
doom of his line, by deposition from the throne, had been 
pronounced on Saul. The prophet was told to fill the cow- 
horn, kept for the purpose, with oil, — supplied, no doubt, 
from the olives so plentiful in all parts of the land, — and 
go to Jesse the Bethlehemite, as God had provided for 
Himself a king from among his sons. The mission, how- 
ever, was dangerous ; for Saul would assuredly kill 
Samuel if the object of his journey were discovered. But 
a secondary purpose, which would veil the real one, was 
readily found. The prophet was to take a heifer with him, 
and announce, on his arrival, that he had come to sacri- 
fice to Jehovah, summoning Jesse and his family to the 
solemnity, so as to bring its various members before him. 

Both larger and smaller communities in Israel were 
under the rule of a body of " elders," who acted in all things 
as the representatives of the population at large. Samuel 
was a judge as w^ell as a prophet, and in either capacity 
might have come with some stern intention. The news 
that he was approaching filled the population, indeed, with 
such fear, that they hastened to him in a body, to ask if he 
came peaceably, for it was a great event to have so famous 
a personage .among them. It was, perhaps, the day on 
which Jesse offered a yearly sacrifice for all his family,^ 

1 1 Sam. XX. 6. 



ANOINTING OF DAVID. 43 

with the usual feast, after it, on the parts of the vic- 
tim, which were not burnt. To this, Samuel said, he had 
come. Let Jesse and his sons " sanctify " themselves ; that 
is, wash their whole persons, and put on clean clothes, 
that he might rejoice with them ^ in the festivity, to which 
no others, apparently, were invited. 

In due course, Jesse appeared with seven sons, each of 
whom, in succession, was made to pass before Samuel. 
Eliab, the eldest, noble in his features and king-like in his 
height, seemed to the prophet as if he must needs be 
the future king; but a warning passed on the moment 
through his mind, full of instruction for all time, that 
" Jehovah looks not on the outward appearance, but on 
the heart," and the fine youth was suffered to go by 
without remark. Another son, Abinadab, and five sons 
besides, followed, one by one ; but the chosen of God was 
not among them all. " Had Jesse no other children ? " 
" Only the youngest, who was now tending the sheep on 
some hillside near Bethlehem." " Send and fetch him," 
said Samuel ; " for we will not sit down [to the feast] till 
he come hither." 

East of Bethlehem, beyond the town-valley, rise long 
and comparatively bare slopes, immemorially devoted to 
pasture. Very probably the missing lad was there with 
his woolly charge, for he was soon got and brought before 
the prophet. He had grown to opening manhood ; and 
though, at most, of ordinary height, his winning features, 
lighted up, we may believe, by magnificent eyes,^ and his 
well-knit and well-proportioned figure, made him " goodly 
to look upon." There was no mistaking his intellectual 

1 Septuagint, 
2 -'A beautiful countenance" — "fair of eyes" (1 Sam. svi. 12). 



44 ANOINTING OF DAVID. 

gifts, nor could there be hesitation as to his loving nature ; 
for to see him was to feel the reality of both. Stories 
were, doubtless, abroad, even thus early, about him; for 
he was devoted to music, and a famous player on the harp, 
while his songs had, in all likelihood, already won him 
local fame, for he was a born poet of the rarest merit. 
His agility and strength were confessed to be amazing ; 
for in after life he could boast that, in his best days, he 
could match the gazelle for swiftness, and break a steel 
bow with his hands. ^ ISTor was he less famous for his 
daring courage ; for it was known over the district, that 
he had bearded and killed, at different times, single- 
handed, and armed only with his shepherd's club, a lion, 
that had come up the ravines from the thickets of the 
Jordan, far below, and attacked his flock, and a bear that 
had come out against it from the rough, low-grown tangles 
of the neighbouring hills, and had killed both.^ It is a 
question, indeed, whether he had not, even at this time, 
shown his prowess against the outlying pickets of the 
Philistine invaders of the uplands. 

How much of all this was known to Samuel must 
remain unknown ; but it is natural to suppose that in the 
interval between the mention of the young hero's name 
and his being brought, the fond gossip of the family circle 
may have entertained the prophet with the details of his 
greatness and amiability, in their partial eyes. In any 
case, to see him was to feel, with the conviction that to do 
so was agreeable to the mind of God, that this stripling 
had in him the making of the king needed for Israel. The 
horn of oil was forthwith produced, and the lad, to his 
amazement, was anointed by the prophet as the future 

1 Ps. xviii. 33, 34. - 1 Sam. xvii. 34, 35. 



ANOINTING OF DAVID. 45 

successor of Saul. How far this ultimate intention was 
communicated to David — for it was he who was thus 
chosen — is doubtful; but after years threw the needed 
light on the full significance of the rite,— if, indeed, some 
measure of homage was not at the moment paid him. It 
is unlikely, at least, that he remained ignorant of the high 
fortune awaiting him ; but it was as yet, at best, a secret 
in his own breast, for the realisation of which he had " to 
tarry the Lord's leisure." 

The simplicity of the age is shown in the humility with 
which such an honour from the great prophet was borne. 
Samuel returned to Ramah, and David quietly went back 
to the care of his father's sheep. But the mysterious 
transaction had stirred and transformed his whole spiritual 
nature. Though still a shepherd youth, high thoughts 
rose within him, to which he had hitherto been a stranger. 
To use the Scripture words, " The Spirit of the Lord came 
mightily upon David from that day forward." God had 
acted through His prophet, and His impulses were hence- 
forth fitting the chosen one for the destiny before him. 



DAVID AND GOLIATH. 

The Philistines were a race inhabiting the fertile coast 
plain of Palestine, as far north as Joppa, having crept up- 
wards from the Delta of the Nile, where they had been 
settled in very early times. They were, in fact, originally 
Phoenicians of Kaf t-ur, — the greater Kaft ; that is, Phoe- 
nicia. They had been employed by the Egyptian kings to 
garrison the five towns in the extreme south of Palestine, 
but in the end, achieved their independence. Keenly 
devoted to gain, they were, nevertheless, full of military 
spirit, and were a terror alike to the Israelites in the hills, 
and to the peaceful Canaanites of the more northern coast, 
though these were of the same race as themselves. Like 
the Phoenicians, they treated the native tribes with great 
harshness, forcing them to till the ground as their slaves, 
while they differed from their mother-country in a fierce 
aggressiveness, which sought to get possession, by force, 
of the main lines of road in all directions inland, that they 
mig-ht control the caravans usinoj them. 

These roads stretched upwards from the plains, through 
the passes and valleys of the Jewish hills, towards 
Damascus and the north, and also towards the Jordan and 
the rich eastern districts. Hence, from a very early period, 
the well-appointed troops of the Philistine communities 
marched, from time to time, up this or that entrance to 
the hill country, harrying the crops and awing the rude 

46 



DAVID AND GOLIATH. 47 

peasants, amongst whom they left military posts along 
the great arteries of commerce. Thus they held the land, 
too often, in helpless subjection. 

It had been so in Samson's day and in the youth of 
Samuel ; and Saul had to fight hard for even a limited 
victory over these oppressors, who, indeed, surged once 
more over the whole of the Israeli tish districts, after the 
defeat and death of the king and his son Jonathan, at the 
fatal battle of Mount Gilboa. 

At the time of the incident of Goliath, the restless foe 
had sent its forces up the broad valley of Elah, between 
the towns of Socoh " the bushy," and Azekah " the newly 
tilled," flooding up, through this wide gate of the hills, 
till they pitched their camp at a spot known as Ephes- 
dammim, " the staying of bloodshed." Here, the wady, or 
valley, is about three miles wide ; a deep trench, with 
steep sides, the bed of the winter torrents, winding hither 
and thither down its centre, and thus forming a natural 
defence to any force drawn up on either side of it. The 
hills on each side are from seven hundred to eight hundred 
feet high, and run nearly east and west. 

Always ready to meet attacks of the national enemy, 
Saul at once summoned, by messengers sent through the 
districts subject to him, as many of the people as he could 
collect, — the number, however, being apparently only in- 
considerable, — and with these, and his central force of 
three thousand men, he marched towards the Philistines, 
and took up a position on the northern slope, facing that 
held by the foe. Clumps of bushes, and patches of barley 
coming to ripeness, covered the valley on both sides of 
the deep shingly bed of the torrent, now dry. At this 
point, the opposite hills were about a mile apart at their 



48 DAVID AND GOLIATH. 

crests, but their slopes run out so far, on each side, that 
the wady is only four hundred or five hundred yards broad 
at their foot. 

It was then usual, as it was for many ages later, for 
famous warriors to come forward from either of two hostile 
armies, and challenge any of his foes to single combat ; 
the result being regarded as a Divine judgment, and 
accepted as a decisive omen of victory or defeat. In this 
case, a gigantic figure — Goliath, " he of the shining 
armour" — stalked from the Philistine army, in helmet, 
jerkin, and greaves of glittering copper ; a copper-headed 
lance hung behind him ; a huge spear, iron-headed, in his 
hand; and a sword, worthy of his lofty stature, at his 
side. The length of the cubit being uncertain, it is im- 
possible to speak positively of his height, but it must have 
been unusual: while his helmet, surmounted, we may 
fancy, by waving feathers, must have added greatly to 
his imposing proportions. He was one of a family marked, 
cis a rule, by its tallness, — one of the last households of 
the Anakim, who were reputed a race of giants. 

Striding near enough to the edge of the torrent- bed to let 
his words be heard over the camp of Israel, this embodied 
terror lifted up his great voice in taunts and curses against 
the Jews, their soldiers and their God, and this for forty 
successive days ; no one taking up his challenge, so great 
was the awe at his appearance and bearing, l^o promises 
offered by Saul, to the hero who should slay such a foe, 
could make any one go out to meet him, though he heard 
that victory meant freedom from taxes and military 
service, abundant riches, and a princess for wife. 

But on the fortieth day of this haughty defiance on the 
one side, and helpless paralysis on the other, young David 



DAVID AND GOLIATH. 49 

arrived in the camp with some parched corn, loaves, and 
Curd cheeses for his brothers ; for there was no commis- 
sariat ; each militia-man having to get his own food from 
home. As he entered the lines, a loud shout attracted 
him ; and, running to the front, he found it rose at the 
appearance of Goliath, on his daily advance, to taunt and 
insult his foes. The craven fear which had permitted 
this, stung the brave lad to the quick. If no one else 
would meet the Philistine, he was willing. Eliab, his 
brother, laughed scornfully at him, but he persisted, till 
word of his counter-defiance reached Saul. The stripling 
was ordered before him, and kindly attempts made to 
dissuade him, but he was firm. Jehovah had enabled him, 
unaided, to kill a lion and a bear, trying to carry off some 
of his flock, and He could, and would, deliver him from 
the hand of this blaspheming, uncircumcised Philistine. 
He would not even put on armour. That of Saul was too 
large for him, and, besides, he was unused to such trap- 
pings. He would trust in his own resources. Wearing 
only his shepherd's coat of sheepskin or coarse linen, with 
a rude wallet hanging at his side, his shepherd's stick in 
his hand, and a goat's-hair sling, he was, forthwith, outside 
the rude protection, before the Jewish camp, on his way 
to the towering champion who had defied the living God. 
His rashness was only in appearance. Able to sling a 
stone with the most certain precision and great force, — 
for he guided his flock by his sling, as is still done in 
Palestine, — he was, indeed, more than a match for his 
enemy. But the sight of such an opponent was, in the 
eyes of Goliath, an immeasurable insult. Was he a dog, 
to be beaten off by a stick ? Let David come on, and he 
would give him for food to the ravens overhead. The 

D 



50 DAVID AND GOLIATH. 

deep trench had now been reached, and some rounded 
small stones picked up from it wore put in the wallet, one, 
also, being laid in the sling. A few minutes more, and 
he had climbed the farther bank, and stood face to face 
with the furious giant, who now rushed at his insignificant 
assailant. But he did not get far. The sling whirled 
round the head of David, and sent its stone deep into the 
brow of the Philistine, the only spot of him exposed. 
Struck senseless, he fell headlong. A moment more, and 
his sword was out of its sheath, and his head cut off, while 
he still lay unconscious. Weakness, with intelligence, 
had triumphed, as usual, over mere brute force. God had 
favoured the stripling who had honoured His name. The 
Philistine army, accepting the omen, fled, and were pur- 
sued by Israel, now plucking up courage, when David had 
set them the example. Napoleon's saying, that an army 
of deer, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions led 
by a deer, was illustrated. David's career as a personage 
famous in Israel had begun. 



DAVID AND yONATHAN. 

No character • in Scripture is more fascinating than that 
of Jonathan. His friendship for David is, in truth, a 
poem, so entirely did he forget the thought of self, in his 
love for the son of Jesse, though he knew that he would 
be supplanted by him in the kingdom naturally his by 
inheritance. 

The first meeting of the two was well fitted to kindle 
admiration for the young Bethlehemite ; but there must 
have been other attractions than the fame of a great ex- 
ploit, to draw out the strong affection David at once ex- 
cited in the heart of Jonathan. Both were heroes ; both 
had done great deeds, — the one in the fight with Goliath, 
the other in the wonderfully daring attack on the Philis- 
tines at Michmash. The sympathy of a heroic nature 
common to both must thus have drawn them together; 
but there must have been a winningness in David's look 
and bearing, to make so entire a conquest of Jonathan's 
lovingj soul. 

The two friends saw each other on the day of the vic- 
tory over Goliath. Led by Abner from the field to the 
presence of Saul, with the huge head of the Philistine 
still in his hand, David, bareheaded, in a simple peasant's 
tunic, his " fair countenance " gleaming with excitement, 
his splendid eyes full of the light of battle, and his rich 
auburn curls encircling his head like gold, must have 

51 



52 DAVID AND JONATHAN. 

looked fit to win any heart. But it was not till he had 
told his artless story to Saul, so modest, so full of religious 
emotion, that " the soul of Jonathan was knit with the 
soul" of the young shepherd, so that "Jonathan loved 
him as his own soul/' or as David himself, after his 
friend's death, expressed it, "he loved him more than 
men love women." ^ Taking off his own war-tunic, he 
put it on him, and insisted on arming him with his sword 
and bow, and putting round him his own costly girdle. 
1^0 greater honour could be shown one than thus to 
clothe him with a robe from the prince's own person; 
for in the East such a gift of an article of clothing 
" which the king useth to wear " has, in all ages, been held 
as a supreme sign of favour, — as we see in the case of 
Mordecai, in the Book of Esther. 

The strength of the friendship thus suddenly formed 
was soon to be severely tested. Boused to morbid jealousy 
by the fame of David for his ^reat exploit, Saul tried 
repeatedly to kill him, but Jonathan in every case took 
steps to give him warning. With a grand self-oblivion 
he thought of his friend as assuredly destined to be king, 
and touchingly prayed him, in return for the friendship 
he had received, to show equal kindness to one so true, 
should he live to see David triumph over all his enemies ; 
adding that, should he be dead when this triumph came, 
he trusted he would continue kind to his children for ever. 
He knew that a new dynasty too often sought to secure 
itself, by murdering all the surviving members of that 
which it supplanted, and pledged David by their common 
God, that this would not be the case toward his own 
descendants. 

i 2 Sam. i. 26. 



DAVID AND JONATHAN. 53 

The two friends parted, with the most touching endear- 
ments. " As soon as the lad " who had collected the arrows 
"was gone," we are told, "David rose from beside the 
heap of stones," ^ behind which he was in hiding, " and fell 
on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times ; 
and they kissed one another, and wept one with another 
until David exceeded ; " that is, till David's weeping grew 
overpowering. " And Jonathan said to David, Go in 
peace, forasmuch as we have sworn, both of us, in the 
name of Jehovah, saying. The Lord shall be between 
me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed, for 
ever." 

Tor years from this time David's life was that of a 
fugitive, in one part or other of the southern and south- 
eastern uplands of Palestine. Jonathan saw him first 
again at Ziph, on the dry chalky downs south of Hebron, 
where the landscape sinks in a great step, toward Beer- 
sheba. It is pre-eminently a " thirsty land ; " for the 
rain filters at once through the porous chalk, leaving the 
surface arid, and scorched by the fierce sun. A plot had 
been laid to betray David, but Jonathan, ever faithful to 
his friend, took care to forewarn him. Seeking him out, 
in the stunted scrub on the hills where he was hiding, he 
" strengthened his hand in God," telling him, moreover, 
that he need not fear, for Saul would not be able to find 
him. He knew, added he, that David would be king over 
Israel ; and, with touching love and humility — with the 
humility, indeed, that is born of true love — said that, for 
himself, he would be the next below him, and that, also, 
Saul, his father, knew this. In fond discourse and mutual 
indulgence of their love, the two spent, we may be sure, 

1 Septuagint. 



54 DAVID AND JONATHAN. 

as long a time as was safe ; but the parting came at last, 
yet they watched each other while either could be seen, 
and then w^ent their several ways, to meet no more. 

Years passed, till, at length, on the rough sides of Mount 
Gilboa lay the corpses of Saul and three of his sons, of 
whom one was Jonathan. He' had fallen, as became so 
noble a hero, on the field of battle. His bow, famous in 
Israel, became a show in the cities of the Philistines ; his 
body, with that of his father, was ignominiously nailed up 
on the wall of Bethshean, whence, however, the two were 
presently carried off, by friendly hands from over the 
Jordan, for becoming burial. 

The lament of David over his friend is enshrined for ever 
in a poem preserved for. us in the first chapter of Second 
Samuel. Many years passed before D.ivid carried out his 
promise of protecting the children of his friend, but he 
did so in the end. Inquiries resulted in the discovery of 
a son of his, Mephibosheth, who, though a child when his 
father perished, and, then, lamed in both feet, by his 
nurse's letting him fall as he was being carried off to 
safety, had grown to manhood, and, himself, had a son, 
Mica.^ He had been taken over the Jordan and tenderly 
cared for, but was now removed to Jerusalem, where he 
" did eat continually at the king's table," and enjoyed his 
grateful favour and protection. 

But David's nature was less noble than that of Jonathan. 
Towards the close of his reign, his weakness in the govern- 
ment of his family, and the penalty exacted by Providence 
for his awful sin in murdering Uriah the Hittite so treach- 
erously, and for an end so ignoble, led to the rebellion of 
Absalom. Mephibosheth would fain have fled from Jeru- 

1 2 Sam. ix. 12. 



DAVID AND JONATHAN. 55 

salem with him; but a treacherous slave-steward, Ziba, 
had gone off with the ass on which he must, on account 
■ of his lameness, have ridden, and thus he had to stay 
behind. But from that day he " neither dressed his feet, 
nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes," so deep 
was his grief for David's misfortunes. 

On the very day of the king's flight, however, while he 
was still only a little way past the top of the hill Olivet, 
and thus close to Jerusalem, the traitor Ziba met him 
with two ass-loads of bread, fruit, and wine, and took the 
opportunity of slandering his master, by saying that he 
stayed behind, in hopes that he might be raised to his 
father's throne, instead of David. Forthwith, on the 
mere word of the traitor, David confiscated all that be- 
longed to Mephibosheth, and made it over to Ziba. On 
the defeat of Absalom, and the aged king's return in 
triumph to Jerusalem, the ill-used prince sought his face, 
with all the marks of his continuous mourning on him, 
and told the story of Ziba's villainy. It was beyond 
question; but, incredible though it may seem, all the 
satisfaction he obtained — son of Jonathan as he was — ■ 
consisted in the rough answer and shamefully unjust 
decision : " Why speakest thou any more of thy matters ? 
I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land." Assuredly 
Jonathan would not have acted thus to the only son of 
David, and he a helpless cripple, cheated and vilified by 
a shameless slave. 



DAVID SPARING SAUL. 

The prudence of David for a time preserved him from 
danger, after Goliath's defeat and death, but he was 
ultimately forced to flee for his life. His first refuge 
was, strange to say, with his enemies, the Philistines, 
to whom he must have represented himself as now the 
enemy of his people, ready to turn against them his 
skill and bravery in war. But his position, from the 
first, in this dangerous region, was insecure ; and it was 
only by feigning madness, which was held in some way 
a Divine possession, sacred from injury, that he preserved 
his life till an opportunity for flight offered itself. 
Stealing away, at last, up the great pass or valley of 
the Terebinth, the readiest ascent into the hills from 
Gath, he hid himself in the caves of a rounded hill, 
about five hundred feet high, at its head, — the hill of 
Adullam. The sides of the valley at this point, in- 
cluding the slope of the hill, are full of caves, still 
used for dwellings and sheepfolds by the shepherds of 
the district. Here he was joined, before long, by a 
number of his countrymen, who, for various reasons, 
often not very creditable, had been forced to flee from 
their homes in Israel. Some of his own family, moreover, 
especially his nephews, found him out, and came to 
him ; and also some famous warriors, who, from different 
causes, had left Saul. Gad the prophet also came, 
perhaps from Eamah. 

56 



DAVID SPARING SAUL. 57 

Meanwhile, the king's fury against his supposed rival 
grew so unbounded that, in a paroxysm of wild rage 
and madness, he slew the whole colony of priests at 
Nob because their chief had given David shelter, and 
shown him friendliness before his final escape. One, 
alone, Abiathar, was able to save his life by flight ; 
but he had with him the sacred insignia of the High 
Priest, his father, who had been slain, and forthwith 
carried them, to Saul's great chagrin, to David, with 
whom he henceforth stayed. 

A short visit to Moab, to put his aged father and 
mother, who also had joined him, in a place of safety, 
closed the period passed at Adullam. The fugitive's next 
hiding-place was in the wood of Hareth, nine miles 
north-west of Hebron, where he was lurking when the 
priests were slaughtered by Saul at Nob. But his new 
retreat was, also, soon known by the king, so that he 
had to seek safety elsewhere. This time, he betook him- 
self to the neighbourhood of Ziph, about four miles below 
Hebron ; an upland region full of hill caves ; the land- 
scape a waste of barren swells and valleys, nearly three 
thousand feet above the sea. Here, in a waterless, 
treeless region, with only scrub, at most, on some of 
the slopes ; the eye ranging over successive levels of 
the grey hills, as they sink, in great steps, towards 
the desert of Sinai ; with the Philistine plains far below, 
on the west, and the repulsive tangle of desolate ravines 
and rounded uplands, forming the wilderness of Judea 
stretching away to the east, some hundreds of feet beneath, 
David might have hoped for safety, but did not find 
it. His retreat was soon discovered, and a large force 
was sent to take him; but, having timely warning from 



58 DAVID SPARING SAUL. 

his true friend, Jonathan, whom he has met for the 
last time, he escaped to Maon, about five miles farther 
south, and hid in the ravines and caves of the hill there, 
which rises as high as the cliff of Ziph. But, though 
closely pursued, he escaped now, also ; Saul being called 
off by news of a fresh inroad of the Philistines. His 
next retreat was in the caves of the precipitous cliffs 
of Engedi, — " the spring of the goats," — on the west edge 
of the Dead Sea, A path cut in the precipitous rocks 
is, even now, the only means of descent from the table- 
land above ; a single false step, at any time, threatening 
to hurl one to the bottom, which is two thousand feet 
below the top. 

Even to this wild and dangerous retreat, however, the 
maddened jealousy of Saul pursued David. But he was 
destined to meet a rebuke of his hostility, in a way he 
little expected. Havmg, one day, withdrawn into the 
shadow of one of the numerous caves with which the 
heights of Engedi, like all the hilly parts of Palestine, 
abound, he had, in doing so, unawares, put himself com- 
pletely in the power of his intended victim, who, with 
his band of followers, happened, at the very time, to be 
hiding in the farther depths of the cavern. ]N"othing 
could have been easier than to have killed the king, 
and David's men would fain have got permission to do 
so. But Saul was God's anointed, and thus sacred; and 
David, apart from this, would have set a bad precedent, 
if he, who himself hoped one day to reign, had taken 
advantage of an opportunity to murder his predecessor. 
Still, he would use his chance in a way that would plead 
for his innocence of anything like treason, and, perhaps, 
calm the passions of Saul against him. Stealing noise- 



DAVID SPARING SAUL. 59 

lessly toward the king, who, being between the light 
and him, could be seen, while he, himself, could not 
pierce the darkness behind him, he cut off, with his 
knife or sword, a piece of the skirt of Saul's cloak which 
was most easily reached, and let him leave the cave 
without injury. When, however, he had gone some 
distance, David came out, and, standing in the open, 
hailed the king, showing him the piece of his cloak just 
cut off, and asking whether there was any reason to 
hunt down one who, under circumstances so favourable 
to violence, had shown himself nobly loyal. There was no 
resisting such an appeal. Saul had received good for 
evil, and on a nature in which there is anything worthy, 
this always makes a powerful impression. Weeping aloud, 
he owned that David was a better man than himself. 
It was clear, he added, that God intended to give him 
the kingdom. Would he only promise that, on coming 
to the throne, he would not cut off his family ? Willingly 
swearing this, the two parted, in peace for the time. 
David, however, would not trust himself in the king's 
neighbourhood, feeling sure that some lit of jealous 
madness would soon break out again, and therefore stayed 
in the wilderness. 

JSTor was he in error. Before long, the hatred of the 
king toward him was raging as fiercely as ever, and 
a second force, larger than that by which he had formerly 
been pursued, was launched against the fugitive ; Saul 
himself going with it. The treacherous Ziphites once 
more volunteered to betray David into his hands, but 
he was too watchful to let himself be snared. Noting, 
from some high point, exactly where Saul's forces had 
rested for the night, within a rough defence of scrub 



60 DAVID SPAKIXG SAUL. 

supplied by the locality, the hunted one descended from 
the hills, trusting to the carelessness of encampments 
in the East, and stole, unperceived, to the very centre 
of the host, where Saul lay asleep, surrounded by Abner 
and his personal guards. The royal spear was stuck 
in the grouDd, as a badge of rank, at the head of the 
sleeping king, and a cruse of water, bound to the saddle 
of his ass by day,, lay near. Carrying off the long spear 
and the cruse, he climbed a neighbouringr hill ao:aiii, 
refusing to take advantage of the opportunity given him, 
to slay Saul as he lay in his slumber. The confusion 
round the king at daybreak, when it was found that 
the spear and the water-skin were gone, must have been 
intense, but it would be heightened when David was 
seen, calling from the height beyond, and proclaiming 
his exploit. Taunting Abner with his want of care of 
the king, he also appealed to Saul himself, to cease 
pursuing one so unmistakably loyal, nor could the force 
of the proof be withstood. The king returned to Gibeah, 
and Da\'id remained for the time in peace. Thus, for 
the second time, the ^dctim of cruel wrong requited it 
with magnanimous loyalty, — literally returning good for 
evil, and, in doing so, leaving a lesson for all time. 



DEATH OF SAUL. 

The defeat of the Philistines in the Terebinth valley, when 
Goliath was slain by David, freed the Jewish hills for a 
time from these dreaded invaders. But they were keen 
traders as well as brave soldiers, and could not submit, 
permanently, to an exclusion from the great lines of 
caravan travel, which ran through the territory of Israel. 
One of these, stretching across the centre of the country, 
through the Wady Sunt and the Wady Kelt, past Mich- 
mash, to the Jordan, had given occasion to Jonathan and 
his armour-bearer's attack on one of the military posts 
guarding it, which brought about the first defeat of the 
Philistines. The inroad during which Goliath was slain 
was an attempt to recover the position thus lost, but it, 
also, had been repelled. There was another trade-route, 
however, along the Plain of Esdraelon, and across the 
Jordan, at Bethshean, which tempted the pertinacious 
enemy to still further effort. 

David had been forced, by Saul's frantic jealousy, to flee 
once more to Gath, where his band of six hundred men, 
now skilled in war, doubtless secured him a better wel- 
come than he had received on his former visit. He might 
have been of vital importance to Saul in the approaching 
campaign, had he been allowed to remain in Israel; his 
military genius counting for much on the side of the king, 
had he been allowed to display it. 

The position of the exile was a difficult one ; for, as a 

61 



62 DEATH OF SAUL. 

pretended enemy of Saul, he would naturally be expected 
to fight agamst him, on behalf of the Philistines. Fearing 
this, he asked and obtained the gift of Ziklag, a distant 
frontier post, twenty miles south of Beersheba, and fifty 
from Gath. Far away, on the edge of the great southern 
desolation of Et Tih, he would be safe from the jealousy 
of the Philistine chiefs, and able to make forays, at his 
pleasure, against the roving encampments which, from 
time to time, invaded the territory of Simeon and the 
southern parts of Judah. It was proposed by the Phili- 
stines, when the new campaign against Israel was being 
planned, to employ so notable a leader, who had a band of 
men so famous, under him. But, in the end, the chiefs 
distrusted him, fearing he w^ould show treachery ; and he 
was thus, happily, left free from the pain of even appa- 
rently joining against his own nation. 

The levies from the Philistine towns and territory 
marched against Saul by the sea-shore route, fearing the 
hill passes, which had been the scene of so many disasters 
to them in past years. Advancing, along the Plain of 
Sharon, to the end of the Carmel range, they had only to 
get round that, to be in the wide Plain of Esdraelon, where 
they could use their chariots ; the special object of dread 
to the Israelites. They thus, also, reached, at once, the 
very heart of the Jewish territory, while, at the same time, 
they forced Saul to meet them where his force could fight 
with the least advantage, and at a great distance from 
their homes, — a matter of supreme importance with a levy 
like that which followed him, each man of which had to 
be provided for by his own household or circle. 

Pressing onwards, the Philistines encamped, with a 
strong force of infantry, cavalry, and chariots, at the east 



DEATH OF SAUL. 63 

end of the plain, so as to command the road by which Saul 
must advance from the south. His raw militia, hastily 
summoned, was no match for the invader ; but, such as 
they were, they bravely followed the king, and found 
means to cross the narrow ravine which separates the 
hills of Samaria from those of Gilboa, — a mass of bare 
rounded heights which fill up the greater part of the east 
end of Esdraelon. As he could do nothing on level ground 
with his infantry, which was his only force, Saul wisely 
kept to the Gilboa hills, and awaited an attack. He was 
now a comparatively old man, and his mental excitement 
so long strained through his jealousy of David, had un- 
nerved him, so that he was not what he once had been. 
Moreover, he was in the position so trying, in the view of 
men in those days, of having no priest or oracle to consult 
before beginning battle. He had slain the priests at Nob, 
and the only one who escaped had taken away the mys- 
terious breastplate of the High Priest, with the Uriin and 
Thummim, and was with David, his fancied enemy. There 
seemed no help for him from the heavens. In his despair, 
he tried to bring on dreams by night, in the hope that God 
would direct him, by some vision thus vouchsafed him. 
But he could not sleep, and did not dream. Years before, 
he had tried to root out sorcerers from the land, but, 
having learned that one still lived in the neighbourhood, 
he determined to visit her, that he might have counsel 
with the unseen world in this way, if in no other. To 
reach her he had to make his way through the Philistine 
outposts, to the hamlet of Endor. on the north side of 
Gilboa, — a spot full of caves, any of which might give a 
fitting home to a professor of the black arts. Disguising 
himself, he stole in the darkness to her dwelling, and 



64 DEATH OF SAUL. 

begged that, if she could do so, Samuel might be brought 
to him, by her incantations. What followed is very mys- 
terious, but, in some way unknown to us, he heard from 
a phantom, whom he recognised as the prophet, words of 
awful import. He had forsaken God, and God had for- 
saken him ; and, before another night had come, he and 
his sons would be in the regions of the dead, with the 
Shade who addressed him. Such a preparation for the 
battle, added to the extreme prostration of mental anxiety, 
and inability to take necessary food, was, itself, enough to 
make defeat almost certain. 

Next day came the catastrophe. The slopes leading to 
the hills were open to the Philistines ; the ravines and 
crags of bleak hills, alone, were held by the Israelites. 
The attack began in the morning, and the Hebrews fought 
bravely all day, keeping off their assailants wondrously. 
But they could not, in the end, withstand the charges of 
horse, foot, and chariot, incessantly renewed, and ulti- 
mately broke up and fled. Three sons of Saul — Jonathan, 
the eldest, Abinadab, and Malchishua — were left dead on 
the hills. Saul, still wearing his royal turban and brace- 
let, and apparently wounded by an arrow, found himself 
alone with his faithful armour-bearer, and saw that he 
would be taken prisoner, which meant his being put to a 
shameful death before all his enemies. Leaning heavily, 
therefore, on his spear, to court death at his own hands, 
he fell mortally wounded, and asked his armour-bearer to 
give him the last blow, to end his sufferings. A wild 
Amalekite, wandering over the field in quest of plunder, 
afterward claimed to have given him this death- stroke ; 
but it seems as if it had been only a vain boast, and that 
Saul had finally killed himself by his own sword. 



DEATH OF SAUL. 65 

The defeat was terrible. The flower of Israel lay on 
the field ; and, worst of all, for her humiliation, the bodies 
of Saul and Jonathan were carried off by the Philistines, 
and, after being beheaded, were nailedup on the walls of 
Bethshean, near the field of battle. A brave act of the men 
of Jabesh-gilead, however, rescued them from this indig- 
nity. But the head of the king, with his arms, and the 
bow of Jonathan, were sent to Philistia, and hung up in 
the temples there. The wrath of God had fallen heavily 
on the house of Saul. Its sun had set in blood for ever ! 



RETROSPECT OF SAUL'S LIFE. 

The reign of Saul was a turning-point in Jewish history. 
About four hundred years had elapsed since the death of 
Joshua, — a period as long as from the discovery of 
America by Columbus, to the present day. During all 
that time the tribes had been isolated from each other, 
and severally, independent, except during the intervals in 
which some had united, in a measure, under a Judge. 
This, however, was an anomalous and partial form of 
government, ceasing at the death of the individual ruler, 
and leaving the nation, as before, a mere set of clans, 
under their patriarchal government of elders and sheiks. 
Civilisation and progress were well-nigh impossible, in 
such an elementary condition of society ; and it was, 
moreover, easy to attack and subdue tribes thus isolated, 
and almost incapable of combined action. Meanwhile, 
the nations round Israel had grown stronger, by having 
centralised governments. Kings had taken the place of 
chiefs, and wielded the whole power of the communities 
over which they reigned; while the great desert tribes 
had grown so formidable, as to overrun Palestine, from 
time to time, and waste the country. In central Israel 
a movement had, therefore, sprung up, from the time of 
Gideon, — about a hundred and fifty years before Saul, — 
in favour of national union under one leader, who should, 
in some measure, be like the kings of the other nations 

66 



EETROSPECT OF SAUL'S LIFE. 67 

of Palestine. It had, however, after a time, died away, 
and Israel, broken and fragmentary, lay under the heel 
of the energetic Philistines from the sea-coast plains, till 
Samuel rose as a dictator, and brought temporary relief. 
It had evidently been the hope of the country, that the 
power thus wielded with so much benefit, should pass to 
the prophet's sons ; but their character, in the end, made 
this wish be abandoned. 

That there should have been a universal demand for 
a king, to take up the office held, as judge, by Samuel, 
was, thus, the embodiment of a desire felt for more than 
a century, and only deferred so long, by the conservatism 
of Oriental life. Yet it was no less natural that, to 
Samuel, this cry of the tribes should seem revolutionary 
in the worst sense. To him, the divinely-ordained con- 
stitution of Israel, was a government directly by God, 
through some prophet or other leader, specially appointed 
by Heaven, as Moses, Joshua, or he, himself, had been. 
A hereditary monarchy would be a distinct violation of 
this. But the helplessness and disaster of the past ages, 
since Joshua, the force of example in neighbouring states, 
and the altered circumstances of the times, left Samuel 
powerless to influence the public opinion of the day, and 
Saul was in the end appointed. 

The character of the new ruler would have made him 
popular among any other people than Israel. So modest 
that, after his anointing, he went back to labour on his 
father's land, and hid himself even when, at a later date, 
he had been publicly chosen by acclamation as king ; he 
was, while his mind remained sound, no less free from the 
cruelty or crime so often disgracing Oriental monarchy. 
He had no such murder as that of Uriah the Hittite 



68 RETROSPECT OF SAUL'S LIFE. 

with which to accuse himself, or of the sons of Eizpah, 
and no such shameful episode in his life as that of Bath- 
sheba. Yet he was capable of wild deeds of blood, after 
his mind had been unhinged by jealousy of David. The 
massacres at Gibeon and E'ob were the outbursts of a 
distempered mind, — the one from an insane idea that 
he must purify Israel from a race condemned by God 
in ancient times ; the other, from the frenzy of a wild 
jealousy, so terrible in its mad paroxysms, that it is 
described as possession by an evil spirit. That his rule 
as a whole was gracious, and his personal character attrac- 
tive, is shown by the loyalty of Israel to his house, under 
his son Ishbosheth. Even the terrible defeat on Gilboa, 
could not extinguish a widespread devotion to his memory 
and lineage. 

Saul was religious after his own fashion, but it was not 
in that way which his extraordinary relations to Samuel 
demanded. Although king in name, and responsible to 
the nation, as such, he was required, in fact, to be simply 
the lieutenant of Samuel, so long as the prophet lived, 
obeying his commands to the letter, even in the face of 
all that might seem ordinary prudence or pity. One 
offence for which he was condemned, was his not waiting 
for the prophet even after the end of the seven days, named 
by Samuel as the term for which he should do so ; the 
excuse for his taking action when the week had expired, 
being the very natural one, that the delay had already 
resulted in the melting away of nearly all the force, 
on which the safety of the kingdom depended. It was 
claimed that he ought to have obeyed by waiting even 
beyond the seven days, but it is easy to understand, 
how he might well have expected his independent action 



EETROSPECT OF SAUL's LIFE. 69 

on SO small a scale, to be condoned by the public benefit 
it secured. 

Not less difficult for ordinary minds must it have been, 
to avoid the other sin, which finally brought on the king 
formal rejection from the throne. His victory over the 
Amalekites was a great triumph for Israel, delivering it 
from a dangerous and powerful enemy. He had been 
ordered utterly to extirpate them, man, woman, and child, 
and to destroy even the cattle and sheep, which must 
have amounted lo many thousands in a great Arab tribe. 
Vanity to have their emir — Agag; a man, it appears, of 
singular beauty and height — grace his triumph, and un- 
willingness to prevent his people, who had so long been 
plundered by the Philistines, from replenishing their 
pastures with part of the booty ; weakness of nature, in 
short, which shrcink from the full terribleness of the 
prophet's curse, — brought on his doom. He was not stern 
and hard enough, when in his softer moods, to be a king 
such as Samuel wished. 

One pities the poor, fated hero, as he stumbled on, from 
one mistake and calamity to another, after the prophet 
had finally denounced him. Was he charged with not 
being zealous for Jehovah ? He would show that the 
charge was unfounded, and he tried to do so, in his wild 
way, by hunting down all the sorcerers in the land, and 
by killing the Gibeonites, as of heathen blood. He had 
no High Priest or Urim to guide him, no prophet to 
see, instead of the oracle; for, in his madness, he had 
slaughtered the priests at Nob, and the prophets had 
fled, or, at least, were not with him. He had no 
light but that of his own clouded mind and broken 
heart. Yet his family clung round him, lovingly, to the 



70 RETROSPECT OF SAUL's LIFE. 

end. There was no revolt of Absalom in his case, but he 
and three of his sons fell, together, on their last battle- 
field. That he should have sought the black art of the 
sorcerer at En dor was natural, in such an age, for one 
whom Heaven had forsaken ; but, after all, he only did 
so, to try if he could not call up Samuel, who had 
denounced him, and seek counsel with him, now that 
the grave might have been supposed to have buried all 
the sternness and bitter memories of the past. 



RISE OF DA VID, 

The death of Saul and three of his sons, in the disastrous 
battle of Gilboa, at last closed the long outlawry of David, 
who, at the time, kept his headquarters in Ziklag, a small 
place in the far south, among the waterless uplands of the 
"JS'egeb." His grief for the fallen king and for Jonathan 
was sincere and deep, — especially, of course, for the latter, 
who had been so true a friend to him in all his troubles. 
He and those around him filled the air with wailing, rent 
their clothes, and wept aloud, like true Orientals, at the 
appalling news, David, besides, commemorating so sad an 
event by a touching ode, preserved in our Bible. 

It was hard to tell what to do next, after this outburst 
of sorrow. That one who had twice fled to the national 
enemy — the Philistines — should come back to his own 
countrymen at once, was impossible. Though the slayer 
of Goliath, and once the pride of Israel, there was no 
voice now raised in favour of David's accession to the 
vacant throne, nor even an invitation to come back, as a 
noted servant of the state. He stayed, therefore, for a 
time, in the far south, but shrewdly took steps to form a 
party in his favour, by sending gifts — from the spoils of 
the Bedouin tribes — to the different towns of the district, 
including Hebron, nominally in acknowledgment of favour 
shown him in the past. This politic step was fruitful. 
Men began to talk of him again, recalling his many claims 

71 



72 KISE OF DAVID. 

to their respect and admiration. It was remembered that 
he had been honoured by the great prophet Samuel ; that 
the prophet's God was with him, and the High Priest 
Abiathar, with the Urim and Thummim ; his hymns and 
songs passed from lip to lip ; his marriage to a daughter 
of Saul, his great deeds in v/ar, from the time, when, as 
a youth, he had braved Goliath, were recounted in his 
favour. Above all, however, the fact that he had round 
him a band of six hundred veterans, who might be of the 
greatest value as a protection in such times, and whose 
vengeance they might well dread, if any slight were shown 
to their leader, was of great weight. Yet the first open 
step to public recognition came from David himself. 
Having consulted the oracle, he determined to go to 
Hebron, uninvited, and to make it his future headquarters. 
Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Jebusites ; and, 
thus, Hebron was the chief Jewish town, — for Samaria 
was not built for a very long time after ; and Shechem, 
in the middle of the country, was altogether inferior, in 
its national dignity, to the city of Abraham. He and his 
two wives, therefore, with his six hundred braves and 
their families, migrated to Hebron, then, no doubt, as it 
still is, a small place, and thus completely in the hands 
of so large a force. 

Saul, though a Benjamite, had represented Ephraim and 
its allied tribes much more than he had Judah, which 
stood aloof from him, from immemorial jealousy of the 
haughty heirs of Joseph, who, as such, claimed the head- 
ship of Israel. To elevate David to local rule, and thus 
make a bid for the leadership of the nation, was possible, 
while the throne was not tilled up; and, hence, David 
soon found himself chosen as their king, by an assembly 



KISE OF DAVID. 73 

held at Hebron. But, as the north and centre of the land 
were in the hands of the Philistines, he was a king with 
a mere trifle of territory. Judah, however, having lain out 
of the reach of the last war, was the strongest of the 
tribes, for the time, — multitudes having perished in the 
other districts, and still greater numbers having fled 
beyond the Jordan. 

Seven years and a half were spent by David in Hebron, 
as king of the one tribe of Judah. During these, however, 
he was ceaselessly busy in planning a wider success. As 
one source of future influence, politic marriages were made 
by him ; polygamy, with all its evils, being thus sanctioned, 
to the great injury, in after times, of his dynasty and of 
the nation. One wife, the mother of Absalom, was taken 
from the wild region of Geshur, beyond the Jordan ; but 
of three other new wives, married during the Hebron 
reign, we know little more than the names. 

Meanwhile, the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, and 
the fourth son of Saul, Eshbaal, " the man of Baal," after- 
wards known as Ishbosheth " the man of shame " or 
"humiliation," were beyond the Jordan. The former, 
being still young, remained secluded ; the other was pro- 
claimed by Abner, a cousin of Saul, and a great soldier, 
successor to the fallen king, who was still widely loved, 
and spoken of fondly as " the roe, or gazelle " of Israel, — 
that creature being the emblem of swiftness and grace, 
beauty and gentleness. For his capital, the ancient 
Mahanaim beyond the Jordan, where two hosts of angels 
had been seen in vision by Jacob, as his protectors, was 
fitly chosen. Step by step, Abner won back much of the 
territory of Saul for his master, who was now thirty-five 
years old, but unequal to the difficulties of his position. 



74 RISE OF DAYID. 

In five years he was nominally lord of all Israel, except 
the tribe of Judah, which, having chosen David for its 
own king, thus virtually seceded from the nation, and 
proclaimed its- independence. Such a state of things 
naturally led to trouble. The old jealousy of Judah 
and Ephraim broke out dangerously. It was impos- 
sible to prevent the mutual excitement from passing 
into civil war. 

The vigour and ability of David proved more than a 
match, however, in this painful strife, for the greater re- 
sources and strength of his opponents, led by the captain 
of a weak and irresolute phantom king. Judah steadily 
extended its power, east, west, and north, till the whole 
territory as far as Gibeon owned the sway of Hebron. To 
save the effusion of blood, Abner now proposed that the 
issue should be determined by a duel of twelve men from 
each side ; but the Benjamites selected to try the fortune 
of battle with twelve of David's men, using their swords 
at the same moment as their adversaries used theirs, the 
whole twenty-four at once fell mortally wounded. A 
fierce conflict followed, in which Abner's men were 
defeated and fled. In the flight, Asahel, one of David's 
nephews, refusing to cease the pursuit of Abner, was 
reluctantly killed by him, and thus the bitterness of the 
feud was increased. But the end was approaching. 
Though dependent on Abner, Ishbosheth was foolish 
enough to quarrel with him, and thus lead him to pass 
over to the side of David. Yet he had little time left 
to serve either ; for Joab, the brother of the slain Asahel, 
treacherously murdered him, on his visit to Hebron, to 
pay homage to his new lord. 

Left without the support indispensable to him, Ish- 



RISE OF DAVID. 75 

bosheth would, no doubt, have speedily given way to his 
rival, but this degradation was spared him. Two Benja- 
mites from the neighbourhood of Gibeon, whose citizens 
had been so cruelly massacred by Saul, basely murdered 
the poor king, at once to carry out the blood-feud for his 
father's crime, and in hope of winning favour from David ; 
but they only brought about their own death. The way 
being now cleared for David's favour with Israel, the 
collective tribes at last gave in their adhesion to him, and 
he was solemnly accepted by all Israel, at a great assembly 
of the nation held at Hebron, with unwonted rejoicings. 
[Nothing could be more propitious than the opening of 
the new reign. Saul's only legitimate heir was Mephi- 
bosheth,^ and David united the suffrages of north and 
south ; thus welding all Israel, for the first time, into an 
organic whole. Yet the task before him was great ; for 
the new dynasty had to meet and overcome not only the 
enemies of past times, but others which were erelong to 
take arms against it. 

1 Besides Mephibosheth, the lame and helpless son of Jonathan, there were 
left two sons of Saul and his concubine Rizpah, and five sons of Michal, the 
daughter of Saul, and Adriel, to whom she had been handed over after she 
was taken from David, her husband. But these stood necessarily in an 
inferior relation to the throne than direct or legitimate children- would have 
held. In such an age, amidst Eastern ideas of succession, which are not 
settled as with us, only an able soldier, the lawful son or grandson of Saul, 
would be recognised as having any personal claims, and Mephibosheth, as a 
deformed, powerless being, would himself have shrunk from being king in 
Buch times. 



DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 

The second installation of David, as king, at Hebron, had 
raised him, at the age of thirty-eight, to the throne of the 
united tribes. The only legal heir of Saul was helpless, 
so that no choice remained for Ephraim and the northern 
section of Israel, but to give their adhesion to one, who 
though not of their own number, had been famous since 
his youth, as a warrior, and in other ways. Judah was 
no less ready to join in an election, which raised a son of 
their tribe to the headship of the race. For the moment, 
the rivalry between it and Ephraim was let sleep, to 
awake, however, fiercely enough, two generations later, in 
the form of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. 

The iirst great act of the new king marked his states- 
manship. Hebron, lying on the slope of its mountain 
valley in the south of the country, was too far from the 
centre to be a fitting capital. But in the territory of the 
small tribe of Benjamin, Saul's own clan, a position offered 
itself which, besides many natural advantages, had the 
great one of being free fi'om any such associations of local 
and sectional importance, as Hebron. It was neutral 
ground ; for, as yet, it was held by the Jebusites, an old 
Canaanite race. David, therefore, resolved to make it his 
metropolis. But it was no easy task to get possession 
of a city which was almost impregnable by its position, 
cut off, except on the north, by deep valleys, from the 

76 



DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 77 

country around. A summons to surrender peaceably was 
met with a taunting refusal. Even the blind and the 
lame, it was insultingly answered, were enough to keep 
the new king out of a place so strong. Perpendicular 
escarpments, cut in the south side of Mount Zion, and 
still seen in the English enclosure there, with cisterns in 
a platform below, to supply the town with water, and a 
stairway cut in the hill, show how well fortified Jebus 
must have been. There was even a great shaft sunk 
through the hill, leading down, by steps, to a covered 
aqueduct, which brought water, underground, from the 
Fountain of the Virgin, in the valley east of the town, 
and thus secured the population from the danger of 
thirst ; and a second watercourse, now buried deep below 
the rubbish of ages, from the one spring in the town hill, 
flowing, then, through a deep valley between Mount 
Moriah and Mount Zion. But bravery and quick-witted 
readiness were equal to the seizure even of Jebus. Joab, 
at the head of a resolute storming-party, climbed up the 
shaft at the south-east of Zion, having got access, one 
knows not how, and took the place by surprise, over- 
powering resistance before it could be organised.^ 

David had now won for the nation a city which, from 
that time, has been famous above all others. As ages 
passed, the Jew became passionately proud of it, not for 
its historical associations so much, as that it was, in his 
eyes, the " habitation for the mighty God of Jacob," from 
the hour when the Tabernacle was raised in its midst, to 
be afterwards superseded by the Temple. It was "the 

1 I have assumed that this shaft was then excavated, as it may well have 
been. There is nothing else to which the word translated "gutter" (2 !Sam. 
V. 8) can apply. 



78 DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 

city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most 
High." For nearly three thousand years the eyes of every 
Jew throughout the world have turned to it, as often as 
he paid his devotions to Jehovah. 

One of David's first acts, after the conquest of his 
new capital, — from this time known as Jerusalem, ap- 
parently "the city of the god Salim" — was to repair its 
defences and build in it a palace for himself. The Jews, 
however, were never famous for skill in architecture, and 
their country did not afford timber suitable. The King of 
Tyre, an admirer of the new king, was, therefore, engaged 
to send cedar from Lebanon, and masons and carpenters 
for the building, which, no doubt, had much in common 
with Assyrian ideas, as the Phoenician arts were largely 
copied from those of the great city on the Tigris. 

Wars with the Philistines for a time put an end to 
the further adornment of the metropolis ; but in the end 
that warlike race was thoroughly broken; Gath itself, 
its chief city, passing into the hands of David, and 
tribute being imposed, ignominiously, on the former lords 
of Israel. The land was thus, for a time, left in peace, 
and this calm, David determined to utilise for an object 
supremely dear to him, as head of the people of God, — the 
bringing up of the ark, from the obscurity in which it had 
long been, as it were, buried, to a fitting resting-place in 
Jerusalem. Arrangements were, therefore, made to carry 
it from Kirjath-jearim, on the outskirts of the western 
hills of Judah, where it had remained since the Philistines 
gave it back, when visited with heavy judgments for 
retaining it. A great tent, or tabernacle, was prepared 
for it on some part of Mount Zion, the eastern side of the 
city, known, after its conquest, as the " city of David." 



DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 79 

To honour so great an event, all the tribes wfere summoned 
to be present, and crowds from every part of the land 
hastened to obey. " We heard men say at Ephratah, in 
the south of the land, and we found them repeat it in the 
woody Lebanon," — says the writer of one of the Psalms ^ 
— " Let us go into His tabernacle : let us worship at His 
footstool." Once in Jerusalem, men could " appear before 
God in Zion." The nation would have a great central 
glory round which, at all times, to rally. 

There had never been such a festival in Israel. Many 
came to it from the farthest south, and not a few from 
Hamath, in the valley of the Orontes, two hundred and 
fifty miles, as the crow flies, north of Jerusalem. 

A new cart having been provided, the ark was duly put 
on it, and the oxen which were to draw it, stepped forward 
with the precious burden. It was an error, however, to 
move it by such means ; for the law ordered that it should 
be borne only by consecrated Levites. It had rested, for 
many years, in its lowly home, but now, as it left it, a vast 
multitude followed in wild excitement of joy. Bands of 
singers praised God, and the music of harps, castanets, 
tambourines, clarions, and cymbals, filled the air with 
jubilation; David himself setting the example of enthu- 
siasm both with voice and instrument. At last they came 
to a smooth space used as a threshing-floor ; but as they 
reached it, the oxen unfortunately stumbled, and the ark 
seemed in danger of being shaken off the rude cart. 
Uzzah, one of the sons of its guardian at Kirjath-jearim, 
fearing it would fall, put out his hand to save it ; but as 
he did so, he fell dead, — perhaps, as the Greek Bible seems 
to hint, by a flash of lighting. Dismayed at a catastrophe 

^ Pb. cxxxii. 



80 DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 

SO evidently from Glod, nothing more was done except to 
turn the awful burden aside, to the house of Obed-edom, 
a Levite. 

Having lain there three months without evil results, it 
was resolved to bring it to Jerusalem. But, this time, it 
was borne hj Levites. Nearly a thousand of the most 
eminent priests and Levites took part in the solemnity. 
Moving on amidst chants, sacrifices, and the flourishes of 
trumpets blown by mighty warriors, it at last reached the 
capital, where all the great of the land, and a vast 
multitude, awaited its arrival. Its entrance into the city 
seemed almost that of Jehovah himself. A choir of 
Levites, on approaching the gates, demanded that they 
should be thrown open before God : 

" Lift lip your heads, ye gates ! 
Be ye lift up, ye ancient doors ; 
That the King of glory may enter in," 

But the warders, hesitating, chanted back : 
" Who is this King of glory ?" 

Then came the triumphal reply : 

" Jehovah, strong and mighty ; 
Jehovah, mighty in battle." 

The two choirs now united in a grand chorus, as the gate 
flew wide, and the ark entered : 

" Lift up your heads, ye gates ! 
Lift them up, ye ancient doors ; 
And the King of glory shall come in. 
Who is this King of glory ? 
Jehovah of hosts, — 
He is the King of glory.'^ 



DAVID AT JERUSALEM. 81 

Sacrifices on a great scale marked the entrance of 
the ark into the new Tabernacle, and then followed the 
music of a grand psalm ^ composed, for the occasion, by 
David, who closed the day's religious services by giving 
the people a priestly benediction, and dismissing them. 
Festivities, with the distribution of bread, flesh, and cakes 
of raisins, ended the glorious day. David had worn an 
ephod like a priest, and had joined in the dances before 
the ark, as he sang and played, in honour of Jehovah, and 
the spirit which moved him so greatly had been that of 
the vast assembly. It was a memorable event for Israel. 

1 1 Chron. xvi. 8-36. 



[The name Uru'salim, or Jerusalem, was that in use for the Holy 
City, at least as early as the fifteenth century before Christ. 
We see this in the correspondence of the Egyptian governor with 
the court at Tel Amarna, in the tablets discovered there. It seems 
to, mean " The town of Salim," apparently the god of the ancient 
Jerusalem, and of the district round it.] 



DAVID AS KING. 

The erection of the Tabernacle, or sacred tent, in Jerusalem, 
and the bringing to it the ark from Kirjath-jearim — " the 
wood- city " — must have marked the later half of David's 
reign; for his wars seem to have ended before this 
peaceful triumph. It would appear, however, that a tent 
no longer contented him as a centre of the religious 
worship of his people. It was the age of great temples. 
In the valley of the Mle, vast piles had, already, for 
many generations, attested the power of the priesthood 
and the devotion of the kings, though no sign of the 
enthusiasm of the people who toiled, in forced labour, to 
raise them. Babylonia had boasted of its great religious 
buildings for perhaps as long a period ; for the reign of 
Sargon of Accad, which has left us a wonderful legacy of 
priestly literature, seems to have been as famous for the 
sanctuaries in which its hierarchy ministered. But other 
regions had not been so early civilised ; and when, in any 
case, they developed into new kingdoms, a grand temple 
appeared a necessary sign of their greatness, as well as 
a fitting tribute to the divinity, by whom^ as was thought, 
it had been secured. A monarchy without a temple 
seemed imperfect, in ages when Church and State were 
virtually identical, or, rather, when the State, as a rule, 
was subordinate to the Church. In antiquity, it must be 
remembered, religion played a far greater part, in the 

82 



DAVID AS KING. 83 

public life of a nation, than it does in ours. Nothing 
could be done without an appeal to the god or gods 
worshipped. Sacrifices smoked perpetually on the altars 
vows were incessantly being made or fulfilled ; rites and 
ceremonies were the essence of religious life, and must be 
observed with the most minute accuracy, before any detail 
of public or private life could be safely undertaken. 

All these motives were probably in David's mind when 
he resolved to signalise his reign by the erection of a 
temple to Jehovah, instead of the tent in which, ever 
since the days of the wilderness, the tribes had seen his 
peculiar dwelling-place. 

As a faithful ally of the prophets, nothing could be 
done by the king without their being consulted. To 
ISTathan, therefore, his special adviser, he took an oppor- 
tunity of communicating his intention, telling him that 
it was a grief to him that he should live in a house, 
ornamented with the costly cedar-wood of Lebanon, while 
the ark of God dwelt within curtains. He must have 
gone into greater detail, but no more is told than his 
regret at the lowliness of the house of God, compared 
with his own. That he should desire to honour Jehovah 
in such a way, seemed, at the first mention of his proposal, 
in every way commenda^ble, so that the prophet, forthwith, 
gave it his hearty approval, telling the king to do all that 
was in his heart, for the Lord was with him. 

Farther reflection, however, led to doubts in the mind 
of Nathan, whether he had been justified in thinking that 
God, like himself, approved of the king's design, and this 
was confirmed by a vision granted to him in his sleep. 
The Divine voice seemed to him to dictate words to be 
used to the king at their next interview, giving reasons 



84 DAVID AS KING. 

why, after all, he should be contented to let matters 
remain as they were, during his lifetime. These intima- 
tions from God, thus conveyed to the sleeper, he, therefore, 
took an early opportunity of communicating to David. 
God, he told him, had deigned to speak on the question of 
the proposed temple, but had pronounced against it. He 
had not dwelt in any such building, during all the four 
hundred years that had passed since their forefathers left 
Egypt, but had been content to " walk in a tent ; " nor 
had He ever, at any time, spoken a word to any of the 
judges of Israel,^ whom He had commanded to feed His 
chosen people, saying, " "Why build ye not Me a house of 
cedar ? " The prophet was, therefore, to tell David, that 
Jehovah had directed him to say : " Thus saith Jehovah 
of hosts," — a name which does not occur in the earlier 
bcoks of the Bible, — " I took thee from the sheepcote, 
from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, 
over Israel: and I was with thee whithersoever thou 
wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy 
sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the 
name of the great men that are in the earth.'' The 
message further gave an assurance that God would 
appoint a place for Israel, and plant them securely and 
permanently in it, so that they would no more lead a 
nomadic life like that of the wilderness, and would, like- 
wise, protect them against their enemies, so that disastrous 
times like those of the judges, or those before David's 
own final triumph over his adversaries, would not again 
visit them. 

This assurance might have sufficed to mitigate the 
disappointment at the refusal to let a temple be built; 

1 This seems the correct reading (2 Sam. vii. 7). 



DAVID AS KING. 85 

but it was added, that God would establish the king's 
dynasty, or, as Jehovah said, " make thee a house." 
Moreover, though he was not to raise a temple, one 
should be built by his son, who should succeed him on 
the throne, which would be established for ever. To this 
son, God would be a father, and He would treat him as 
a son, chastening him if he did evil, but never removing 
His mercy from him as it had been taken from Saul. 

It is probable that the state of public feeling was, as 
yet, opposed to the building of a temple ; for the tribes 
were by no means firmly united, and the jealousy between 
the North and South — that is, between the house of 
Joseph, represented by Ephraim, the virtual head of ten 
of the twelve clans of the nation, and Judah, — to which 
David belonged, and which stood practically alone, — only 
slumbered. During the times of the Judges, Judah 
appears to have kept apart from the rest of the nation. 
Its capital was at Hebron, and David had been its loca^. 
king. Moreover, a temple would centralise the national 
glory at Jerusalem, — a heathen town till lately, — and 
would take away its importance from Shechem, the 
capital of the northern tribes. A generation later would 
have less dislike of the project, 

David's prayer of acquiescence in the will of Jehovah 
is very beautiful. " Sitting " before Jehovah, we are told, 
he glorified Him for having raised one so lowly to such 
honour, but, still more, for the great promise, riiade as 
a man would make it with his fellow, that his dynasty 
would be permanent. Such wondrous grace had never 
been shown to any nation, as that of Jehovah to Israel, 
from the days of Egypt. He besought Him to establish 
for ever, the word He had promised, respecting the throne. 



86 DAVID AS KING. 

and to do as He had said, magnifying His name a3 
Jehovah of hosts, the God of Isiael, and maintaining the 
line of the king's family. So great an honour did this 
seem, that he repeats it several times before his prayer 
closes. To be allowed to found a house, that is, a dynasty, 
was a glory for which he could not express his gratitude. 
The blessing of Jehovah upon it was his supreme desire. 

How faithfully this promise was kept, is shown by the 
history of the nation. The ten tribes who revolted had 
a downward career of revolution, till they were finally 
carried off to Assyria in B.C. 721. The line of David, 
on the other hand, reigned till the downfall of Judah in 
B.C. 588. Still more, the line of David has blossomed 
for all ages in his great descendant, our Lord and Saviour, 
in whom his glory will have no end for ever. 



DAVID AND URIAH. 

The sin which brought David so low marked the second 
year of the siege of Kabbah, when the king was at least 
fifty years old. Joab, the commander of his army, had 
returned with it to Ammon, "at the time when kings 
go forth to battle ; " but David remained in Jerusalem. 
The quarter assigned, in that city, to the Gibborim, or 
" braves," w^ho had followed the king through his rough 
earlier life, and now formed his "guards," was on the 
slope of Mount Zion, immediately below the humble 
palace of their master. Among them, one of the most 
famous was Uriah, a Hittite by race ; that is, one of the 
" children of Heth," with whom we meet so far back as 
the days of Abraham, as living in Southern Palestine, — a 
small offshoot from the great Hittite stock which, for ages, 
ruled from the Euphrates to Asia Minor, and had been 
too powerful even for Eameses 11. to subdue. He had 
won a place, by his deeds in war, among the thirty- seven 
decorated heroes of his famous corps, and, as such, ranked 
high in local society and general fame. Though an alien, 
he had adopted the Hebrew religion, and had married the 
grand-daughter of a local magnate, Ahithophel, the special 
counsellor of the king. 

Having marched with Joab to the front, Uriah left his 
wife in Jerusalem. She was a woman of striking beauty, 

87 



88 DAVID AND URIAH, 

and might have been worthy of him, but for circumstances 
too exciting for her ambitious and shallow nature to resist. 
The roofs of houses in the East are fiat, and form a 
pleasant lounging-place by day, as well as a cool sleeping- 
place by night, in the hot months. That of Bathsheba's 
house, immediately under the palace, was chosen by her, 
of all places, for taking her bath, which a modest woman 
would, one would think, have taken in the privacy of 
some room below; for, of course, she knew that other 
roofs, and notably that of the palace, overlooked her own. 
That David's did so, was most unfortunate for him ; for, 
in an evil hour, he came out to enjoy the cool of the upper 
air on it, while Bathsheba was thus disporting herself' 
and the sight of her charms, in a moment raised in him 
a wild and lawless desire to make her his own. He 
had a number of wives and concubines already, but the 
one ewe lamb of Uriah had attracted him; and, with 
coarse and hideous selfishness, he sent orders to her to 
come to the palace ; Eastern kings, then, as now, treat- 
ing their subjects like slaves. Nor was she, perhaps, 
if we may judge from her after life, very unwilling to 
obey. 

But now, in an hour, David had thrown away the good 
name of a lifetime, and had outraged all his lofty profes- 
sions which had been sincere as they were noble. He 
could not plead youth, nor was the partner of his guilt a 
woman of humble rank, but the wife of a high officer, who 
had served him splendidly. There was not only the 
shame of public exposure, but the risk that Uriah might 
kill him, in revenge for such a treacherous crime. To 
hide his sin, he fancied he must go still farther in wicked- 
ness. Sending Bathsheba home again, he summoned Uriah 



DAVID AND URIAH. 89 

from the camp, on some pretext, hoping that he would go 
to his own house while in Jerusalem. But the noble 
soldier, though urged by the king, with hateful deceit, 
thus to refresh himself, refused to do so, declining any 
indulgence, as he nobly said, while his companions in 
arms were lying in the open air round Eabbah, at 
the war. 

Failing in his smooth hypocrisy, David did not shrink 
from still baser guilt ; for sin, once getting our master, 
drives us to ever greater wrong-doing. He would get rid 
of Uriah altogether, and make him the bearer of his own 
death-warrant. Writing a letter to Joab, to put the 
unsuspecting hero in the front of the battle, he ordered 
that he should be left without support, his men being 
withdrawn, that his known bravery might expose him to 
certain slaughter, in his efforts to rally them, and main- 
tain his own honour, by not retreating. The plan was 
only too successful. Not knowing the reason of such a 
command, Joab, with passive heartlessness, carried it out 
to the letter. Left alone at the strongest part of the 
defences, the injured man was presently struck down 
from the walls, and killed. 

Such a sin, though common enough in Eastern mon- 
archies, and carefully hushed up as a palace secret, could 
not be kept private among a people whose conscience — 
thanks, in great part, to David himself — was, for the times, 
nobly sensitive. It became the talk of the bazaars, and 
passed from lip to lip, till, at last, it found an echo in 
David's own presence. Nathan the prophet, though still 
a young man, was the royal confessor, if one may so speak, 
and, as such, sought the presence of the guilty man. His 
sacred character made his life safe ; for a prophet of old. 



90 DAVID AND UIJIAH. 

like a dervish to- day, could brave the wrath of kings, 
knowing that they dared not lay hands on one believed 
to speak for God. Eeciting the parable of the one ewe 
lamb, which a greedy rich man took from a poor one, to 
add to his own ample flock, he forced from David's lips, 
by his skilful art, an unreserved admission of his own 
guilt. To Nathan's bold accusation, "Thou art the 
man," he could put forward no defence. The dreadful 
punishment to follow his crime, was then told him in 
agonising detail, and he was left to the pangs of con- 
science. 

Long months had passed since the first sin, and a child 
had been borne to David by Bathsheba. Its death was 
to be the first of a long series of visitations to humble 
him and drive him to penitent remorse. Nor was the 
penalty fruitless. Love of his children was a striking 
feature in David's nature ; but prayer and fasting were 
alike vain to save the infant. Its death was his own 
restoration to a better life. True penitence is seen in a 
changed life ; and this was noticeable in his case. How 
true and earnest his sorrow was at his fall, is seen in such 
psalms as the thirty-second and the fifty-first. For three 
thousand years they have been the chosen language of 
broken-hearted contrition. One sees in them how he 
must have striven with lowly grief and shame, long con- 
tinued and lastingly fruitful, to win back the peace of 
mind he had lost ; to begin once more the godly life, so 
sadly interrupted ; to put away every thought of excuse 
or palliation ; and to cast himself unreservedly on the free 
mercy of God, which, he fondly trusted, would, in the end, 
pardon even such a great offender. Nor can we doubt 
that such humiliation found favour with the All-pitiful ; 



DAVID AND UEIAH. 91 

for with him it is not the greatness of our guilt, but the 
sincerity of our repentance, that is the condition of peace. 
Even the best of us has sins enough to deplore; and God 
has promised to receive even the chief of sinners who 
seeks His face with a broken and contrite heart. 



THE CURSE COMES HOME, 

The results of David's great sin in the matter of Uriah 
and Bathsheba were sad in the extreme. The curse was 
not confined to his own self-reproaches. The tone of his 
household was fatally lowered. He had done wrong in 
having a multitude of wives, for the children had, neces- 
sarily, opposing interests ; each mother desiring that her 
own might be the special favourites of the king, and 
supply a successor to his throne. The different mothers 
had, each, her own establishment, and thus intrigues of 
all kinds found as many centres as there were rival 
families. 

The fell example of David himself, in his relations with 
Bathsheba, found imitation, only too soon, in his household. 
His eldest son Amnon, the heir-presumptive by birth, com- 
mitted a shameful outrage on his half-sister, Tamar, the 
full sister of David's third son, Absalom, a young man of 
singular personal beauty, but vain, heartless, crafty, ambi- 
tious, unprincipled, and yet not without abilities enabling 
him to play successfully the part to which he aspired. 
Eevenge was determined upon by him for the foul wrong 
done to his sister, but, it may well be, that, with this, 
there mingled the desire to get a rival for the throne out 
of his way. Concealing his purpose for two whole years, 
till the wretched Amnon fancied himself forgiven, he at 
last invited all David's sons, Amnon among them, to a 

92 



THE CURSE COMES HOME. 93 

great sheep-shearing feast on his pastures, — the equivalent 
to our harvest-home, — and caused him to be stabbed as 
he sat at the banquet. Terrified lest the same fate might 
befall them, each of the others at once fled on his mule 
to Jerusalem, where, for a short time, it was fancied that 
a sweeping revolution had broken out. The alarm soon 
passed away, though Absalom had to flee to his mother's 
original home, at Geshur, beyond the Jordan. After 
three years, however, by. the secret aid of Joab, who used 
a woman of Tekoah as his instrument, the murderer was 
allowed to return to his country house, though forbidden 
to enter Jerusalem. Two years passed in this half-exile, 
but, in the end, the weakness of David for his children, 
and the influence of Absalom over Joab, the head of the 
army, secured a free pardon, and the prince once more 
took his place in the capital. 

It was now at least five years since the murder of 
Amnon and about ten since the crime against Uriah and 
the scandal with Bathsheba, but the penalty of the king's 
sin was yet only very partially suffered. A pretended 
reconciliation with his father, left Absalom free to nurse 
and carry out dark designs against him ; the banishment 
he had endured for what he probably thought his just 
punishment of Amnon, rankling in his bosom, and his 
guilty haste to be great, urging him to any steps, however 
infamous, likely to bring him sooner to the throne. 

Unfortunately, a political blunder of David aided his 
enemies. Anxious, perhaps, to raise extra taxes, demanded 
by the growing cost of the monarchy, he resolved, in an 
evil hour, to make a census of the population through- 
out the whole country. Orientals have a fixed hatred of 
being thus registered ; knowing, doubtless, that it means 



94 THE CURSE COMES HOME. 

additional oppression ; and Joab, feeling that this was 
the mood of the people at large, tried hard to dissuade 
the king from his purpose. Officers were, however, sent 
out in all directions, and were busy, for nearly a year, in 
tabulating all details of the possessions of each house- 
holder, and the number liable to taxation or conscription. 
Nothing could have assisted the plot of Absalom more 
completely, especially as an outbreak of plague, during 
the census, appeared a direct judgment of Heaven against 
it as a sin. 

David had made himself intensely unpopular, and his 
base son took advantage of his being so, to try to ruin him. 
To win the populace, he affected royal state, riding in a 
chariot preceded by running footmen, such as one still 
sees in Egypt, and, with this grandeur, he united a cal- 
culated humility, as if no less proud of being familiar with 
the multitude. David had been in the habit of sitting^ in 
the shadow of one of the city gates, where the crowd 
could gather on the open space in front, and there judghig 
all causes brought before him. Every one now heard 
from Absalom, that his case was clear beyond doubt, and 
that, though there were delays in justice under the king, 
his father, who was now getting old, -it would be very 
different if he, Absalom, were king. 

Four years passed in this preparation for revolution, 
and, at last, things seemed to promise success. The brain 
of the conspiracy was Ahithophel, the grandfather of 
Bathsheba, a man of surpassing acuteness, and, with him, 
was associated his son Eliab, one of the Old Guard of . 
David, who was thus a traitor, in the innermost circle of 
the king's retinue. Absalom's commanding presence, — 
for he looked every inch a kmg, — his artful condescensions 



THE CURSE COMES HOME. 95 

to the crowd, and his no less artful pomp and glitter, 
had honeycombed the foundations of the throne, already 
weakened by the old monarch's mistakes and sin. It was 
resolved to make Hebron, the old capital of Judah, the 
starting-place of the revolution. Its distance from Jeru- 
salem secured a safe beginning of the great enterprise. 
Feigning a desire to pay a vow in the long famous city, 
Absalom set off to it, attended by a great cavalcade of the 
principal men of Jerusalem, who were innocent of any 
treasonable intention, and had been deceived into the 
journey. Messengers had already been sent through the 
land, to proclaim Absalom king, at the signal of trumpet- 
blasts, which were to be repeated from point to point, as 
soon as the revolution had broken out at Hebron. A great 
feast then drew the multitude together, and, in the excite- 
ment, the conspirators hailed the traitor as king, in the 
room of his father. A few hours later, the proclamation 
had been repeated over the whole country, and everywhere 
met a response, except in Jerusalem. 

Word was speedily brought to the Capital of the out- 
break of the rebellion, and of its wide success. It had, in 
fact, swept over the land, like fire over the dry grass of 
the prairies. That Absalom, his specially loved son, should 
have risen against him, filled David with the deepest 
sorrow ; but he kept his presence of mind, and took 
measures for his safety and eventual victory, worthy of 
his best years. Feeling that it would be impossible to 
hold Jerusalem against an attack from all Israel, he in- 
stantly resolved to leave it, and set forth, bareheaded and 
barefooted, as a sign of mourning, amidst a melancholy 
train, to reach the Jordan before it was too late. His Old 
Guard happily stood by him, and took their wives and 



96 THE CUESE COMES HOME. 

children with them. The sad procession wound on over 
the shoulder of Mount Olivet, the ark in its midst, at- 
tended by the two High Priests and the whole body of 
Levites. Hushai, a trusted friend, anxious to follow the 
king, was sent back, to serve him by spoiling the designs 
of Absalom, while pretending to advance them, and was 
successful in gaining the confidence of the prince, who had 
hurried to Jerusalem. 

Meanwhile, amidst wailing from his friends, and the 
curses of some of his enemies, still true to the fallen house 
of Saul, David kept on, down the steep defile leading to 
the Jordan. Absalom had already entered the capital, 
taken possession of the royal harem, as a sign of ha\ing 
seized the throne, and held a council as to future action. 
Ahithophel pronounced for instant pursuit, but Hushai 
was able to save Da^-id, by recommending delay, while an 
army was being collected. Eunners were sent to tell the 
king of his danger, and before morning he was safe be- 
yond the Jordan. Absalom's ruin was virtually secured, 
Ahithophel, seeing himself put aside, committed suicide, 
and thus the revolution lost its inspuing genius. 

Three months passed before further steps were taken 
on either side. A great army had, in this time, been 
gathered both by Absalom and his father, and that of 
the traitor finally crossed the Jordan, to assail the king 
in his temporary capital at Mahanaim. Joab led the royal 
army, the host refusing to allow David to peril his life by 
doing so. One condition only was exacted by him, — that 
Absalom's life should be safe ; but this, fortunately for 
Israel, was not kept, A great battle resulted in the 
triumph of the king. Absalom, fleeing on his royal mule, 
was caught by the branch of a tree running through his 



THE CURSE COMES HOME. 97 

glorious hair, and was killed by Joab, and his army hope- 
lessly scattered. A deep hole in the rough ground sup- 
plied a fitting grave for the worthless prince, and his body, 
rudely thrown into it, was buried beneath a pile of stones, 
of which every passer-by threw one, to raise a cairn over 
him, marking the detestation of his crime. Even to this 
day, indeed, Jewish fathers lead their sons to the so-called 
tomb of Absalom, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and make 
them throw a stone at it, and spit towards it, as an ex- 
pression of abhorrence at the conduct of the worthless 
son to his father. 



DAVID'S GRIEF FOR ABSALOM. 

The character of any man is a strange bundle of contra- 
dictions. Philip the Second, who coolly ordered Alva to 
put to death the whole population of the Low Countries, 
because they were Protestants^ and strangled his eldest 
son, apparently on suspicion that he was a doubtful 
Komanist, was tenderness itself to his daughters, and 
found delight in writing them, when they were away 
from him, the sweetest letters about his flowers and 
garden, as if they were his most cherished delight. The 
same David who was so ruthless towards his conquered 
enemies, killing one in three of his prisoners at Moab, 
and treating the Ammonites even more cruelly ; who was, 
moreover, capable of such a crime as the murder of Uriah, 
with all its hideous surroundings, was so devoted to his 
children, that the death of the infant of Bathsheba quite 
unmanned him for the time, while the brutal offence of 
Amnon remained unpunished, because he could not be 
stern against his son ; and even the surpassing treason of 
Absalom would have remained a peril to the state, had 
the matter been left to his father's decision. The same 
heart shows, at different times, the greatest harshness, 
and the tenderest gentleness. To judge any one without 
looking at his life from every side, is to misrepresent him. 
When the arch-traitor had been thrown into the hole 
in the woods, near the battle-field from which he had fled, 

98 



DAVID'S GKIEF FOR ABSALOM. 99 

and had been buried beneath the contemptuous stone- 
heap, thrown on his dishonoured remains, the difficulty 
of breaking such a result of the victory to David was 
keenly felt, though he owed his only hope of a quiet close 
to his reign, to the stern justice thus meted out to his 
worthless son. But then he had been so handsome, he 
spoke so fairly, he had been such a joy in the old days at 
Hebron, as a child, and David, like Eli, was so blind to 
the w^orst faults in his sons, that it was almost perilous 
to let him know, that his command to spare the rebel's 
life had been disregarded. 

To bear evil tidings to an Eastern king is, in any case 
dangerous, and, hence, when a young priest, Ahimaaz, 
begged to be allowed to run to Mahanaim, and tell David 
of Absalom's death, Joab, from a friendly feeling, ordered 
an Ethiopian, who was present, to go instead. But the 
younger man, having received permission after his swar- 
thy rival had started, soon outran him, being famous, it 
would seem, for a special style of running, which bore 
him with unusual swiftness on his course. The king, in 
his anxiety as to the issue of. the battle and the fate of 
his son, had come to the narrow interval between the 
outer and inner gates of the town, and sat there with a 
heavy heart, to hear the earliest news. Warders mounted 
the roof of the outer gate, on a line with the wall, fiom 
time to time, — the gate standing no doubt, as usual, in a 
strong building, with a roof intended for defence, — to 
watch for the approach of any runners from the army; 
and at last Ahimaaz was descried, followed soon after by 
the Ethiopian. 

" News at last ! " cried the poor king. " Who is it ? " 
" The running is like that of Ahimaaz." " He is a good 



100 David's grief for absalom. 

man," muttered David, "and comes with good tidings; 
for he is not one who would have iied from the field, and 
must have been sent by Joab." But the priest had not 
the courage to tell the worst ; perhaps he had too fine 
feelings to do so. "All is well," cried he, as he threw 
himself to the earth on his face before the king, in 
Oriental obeisance, and then he added, in the style of the 
East, " Blessed be the Lord thy God, which hath delivered 
up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the 
king." This vagueness, however, was not enough. " Is 
the young man Absalom safe ? " gasped out the king. 
But he could get no direct answer from the priest, but 
only the evasive words, '• When Joab sent . . . thy servant, 
I saw a great tumult, but I knew not w^hat it was.'* 
" Turn aside," said the king, " and stand here." The 
Ethiopian was then called, and showed no such timidity 
or sensitiveness. " Tidings, my lord the king," said he, as 
he came forward : " for the Lord hath avenged thee this 
day of all them that rose up against thee." "Is the young 
man Absalom safe ?" struck in the king, his heart dwell- 
ing, above all, on the safety of his son. " The enemies of 
my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee 
hurt, be as that young man is." It was clear that 
Absalom had perished. David had been in the space 
between the two gate-buildings till now, but he could 
stay there no longer. Bursting into a paroxysm of grief, 
he climbed up the steps leading to the chamber over the 
outer gate, and men heard him wailing as he ascended 
them : " my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! 
would God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my 
son!" 

The news of the king's violent grief for his worthless 



David's gkief foe absalom. 101 

son soon spread far and wide, ultimately reaching Joab, 
the general in command, himself. The effect was disas- 
trous ; for instead of joy at the victory that had saved 
David's throne and life, there was only a wide gloom, as 
if misfortune had befallen him and his host. Instead of 
returning with triumphant music and loud acclaim, which 
their valour and great services richly deserved, the wearied 
heroes who had ventured their lives in the field, came 
back by stealth into the town, like people who creep away 
ashamed when they have fled in cowardice from the battle. 
Still the wailing rose, loud and bitter, from the chamber 
where the king had hid himself, with covered face, sobbing 
with a loud voice, and ever and anon calling out, " my 
son Absalom ! Absalom, my son, my son ! " 

It was natural that a father should grieve over the 
death of a son, especially of one so noble in person, even 
though so unworthy in conduct ; but he was a king as 
well as a father, and the dead man had sought his father's 
death, and had overthrown his government. Such ill- 
considered sorrow as he now showed might have the 
worst consequences. Joab, therefore, always faithful to 
David, however unworthy in other respects, made his way 
into the presence, and, with soldierly bluntness, told the 
king that he had shamed the faces of all his servants, who 
that day had saved his life, and the lives of his sons and 
daughters, and of his wives and concubines. In so doing, 
he seemed to love his enemies and hate his friends; for 
he had virtually declared by his wailing and gloom, that 
he set no value on either the leaders or the rank and file 
of his army, but, clearly, would have been well pleased if 
his whole army, officers and men, had perished in the 
fight, provided Absalom had escaped. He must, therefore, 



102 David's geief foe absalom. 

at once rise from the earth on which he lay, and go out 
to the multitude and speak comfortably to them; for it 
was certain that if he did not thus counteract his mis- 
taken grief, there would not be a man of his force left by 
night, and that would be worse for him than all that had 
happened to his hurt, from his youth till then. 

The force of Joab's words was so evident that David 
felt he must act instantly on the counsel given him. 
liising, therefore, and putting aside the signs of mourning, 
he came down to the open space before the gate, to return 
thanks to the army for their splendid service. It was, 
fortunately, not yet too late. Word spread fast that the 
king had made his appearance and sat in the place of 
judgment, to receive those who had fought for him so 
nobly, and erelong the vast multitude gathered before 
him, to hear his congratulations and warm acknowledg- 
ments. It was well that the loyalty of his followers had 
not been strained too far ; for the question of a restoration 
still hung in the balance. The jealousy between South 
and North was profound, and only very wise manage- 
ment could secure David's once more reigning over an 
undivided nation. 



CHARACTER OF DAVID. 

We are fortunate enough to have some last words from 
the death-bed of the hero-king of Israel preserved to us, 
strange to say, for nearly three thousand years, and giving 
a faint echo from the chamber in which he lay breathing 
away his sinking life. 

These words are more like those of a prophet than of 
the " sweet singer " of so many psalms and hymns ; but the 
near approach of death seems to have raised him to a 
higher strain, as if a special inspiration had come upon 
him as he reviewed the wonderful experiences of the life 
so nearly closed, and looked forward with eyes illuminated 
as with the light of eternity, on the future. It will be 
noticed that this parting song consists, in effect, of three 
turns of thought. The first, that if the ruler of Israel 
who shall follow him be one who exercises his power up- 
rightly, in the fear of God, prosperity will attend him in 
all things, since a new reign is like a new day; and, if it 
be a righteous one, will be like a bright, cloudless morning, 
whose beams will bring forth all fruitfulness, as from a 
land prepared by rich, heavy showers for their life-giving 
influence. In the second part of the song, if I may so call 
it, David tells his own experience of this. He had sought 
and found the covenant of friendship with God ; and 
as he had always walked before his people consistently 
with this aim, so, prophets, and the nation as a whole, 

103 



104 CHARACTER OF DAVID. 

recognised and witnessed that he did really enjoy this 
favoured relation to Jehovah, and that its fruits, in Divine 
blessing and the fulfilment of all national wishes, had 
already begun to spring for both the king and the people 
at large, and, could not but continue, surviving his death, 
and abiding permanently on the land. 

This the dying man impresses on the conscience of all 
by a contrast, in the third part of his farewell, between 
the position of a righteous king and one who is the 
opposite. Those who do not live in such friendship with 
God, says he, but in rebellion against Him, have no rich 
blessing from above, coming, as it were, to meet them, but 
are, rather, like worthless and hurtful thorny growth, 
from which one draws back the hand, and against which 
he comes provided with hooks and bills, if he has to pass 
through the place they have invaded, if, indeed, he do not 
destroy them root and branch by fire. David himself 
had thus destroyed many confederacies of his enemies, 
and so would all ungodly nations perish before the 
faithful servants of the Most High. 

The deep religiousness of David's nature, notwithstand- 
ing his grievous fall, cannot be doubted, when we read 
the psalm in which he embodies his ideal of the true ruler 
of a people. In Psalm ci., for example, he writes as no 
one could who was not intent on acting up to a lofty con- 
ception of his duty. 

" I will sing of mercy and judgment : 
I will say to Thee, Jehovah ! 
I will give lieed to the perfect way : 
Oh, when wilt Thou come unto me? 
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. 



CHARACTER OF DAVID. 105 

I will set no wicked thing before my eyes : 

I hate the work of them that turn aside, 

It shall not cleave to me. 

The (man of) froward heart shall depart from me ; 

I shall not know what is wicked. 

He who secretly slanders his neighbour, him will I cut off: 

He who has haughty looks and a proud heart will not I suffer. 

Mine eyes shall be on the faithful of the land, that they may 

dwell with me : 
He that walks in a perfect way — he shall serve me. 
He that worketh deceit shall not dwell in my house : 
He who speaks lies shall not tarry in my sight. 
• Diligently shall I cut off all the wicked of the land. 
That I may (thus) root out all evil-doers from the city of 

Jehovah." 

His ideal of a citizen of Jerusalem, "the city of 
Jehovah," is no less strikingly shown in other psalms. 
Thus he says in Psalm xv. : 

" Jehovah ! who shall abide in Thy tabernacle (or tent) ? 
Who shall dwell on Thy holy hill 1 
He who walks uprightly, who worketh righteousness, 
Who speaks the truth in his heart. 
Who does not backbite with his tongue, 
Nor doeth evil to his neighbour, 
Nor raises slander against his neighbour ; 
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, 
But he honoureth them that fear Jehovah ; 
He who, having sworn to his own hurt, does not change ; 
Who does not put out his money to usury. 
Or take a bribe against the innocent. 
He who acts thus shall never be moved." 

So also, in Psalm xxiv., he asks : 



106 CHARACTEE OF DAVID. 

" Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah ? 
Who shall stand in His holy place ? 
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, 
Who hath not set his heart upon vanity, 
And has not sworn deceitfully." 

One who could look back from his death-bed on a reign 
of which such psalms represent the spirit and aim, might 
assuredly claim to have made a covenant with Jehovah, 
and might confidently believe that, if hi^ successors 
followed in his course, the blessing of the Eternal would 
make his house perpetual. 

Unfortunately, the high ideal of the Psalmist-king was 
very far from being closely imitated by too many of the 
rulers who sprang from him. Yet it is a striking fact, 
that while revolutions continually overthrew the dynasties 
of the ten tribes, the family of David sat on the throne of 
Judah till the city at last fell before ^Nebuchadnezzar, 
more than four hundred years after David's death. 



Note. — Psalm ci. is ascribed to David by Delitzsch and to "a king" by 
Moll. Graetz assigns it to Hezekiah. Cheyne to the time of the Maccabees ! 

Psalm XV. is ascribed by Delitzsch to David and Moll : to Josiah's day 
by Ewald. 

Psalm xxiv. is assigned by Delitzsch to David : by Hitzig to Jeremiah, 
while Ewald and Olshausen think it is made up of two psalms. 

With all respect to Canon Cheyne, as a representative of the most advanced 
criticism, 1 cannot help thinking his conclusions veiy often based on quite 
illusory grounds. 



SOLOMON'S WISE CHOICE. 

The name " Solomon" is one which, though consecrated to 
a special meaning in the case of the son of David and 
Bathsheba, was already well known, before his birth, in 
the west of Asia. An Assyrian god bears it, and was 
specially honoured on the Euphrates as " the god of peace." 
In the time of Tiglath-pileser III., moreover, a " Solomon" 
was King of Moab, so that the Assyrian deity was known 
there, and had his name given to a prince ; and there was 
also an Assyrian king who bore it long before David's 
time.^ After long and bloody wars, the old king must 
have yearned for peace, if only to strengthen the empire 
of which he had laid the foundations. Perhaps also he 
may have wished, in the name of his son, to embody a 
trust that the sin with Bathsheba, his mother, was finally 
forgiven. 

Solomon was between twenty and thirty years old when 
his father died, and succeeded to the throne apparently in 

^ Note. — The name "Solomon," in our English Bible, renders literally the 

name of the son of David, as given in the Greek New Testament and in the 

writings of Josephus. The Septuagint gives the name as Salomon, while the 

Hebrew text of the Old Testament offers Shelovid. In so far as the ending 6 

in this {lebrew name stands for 6ii, obscured from the original an (compare, 

also, Hos. X. 14), the Hebrew Shelomd is the same as the name of the Assyrian 

god Shalmdn, occasionally met with in Assyrian proper names (for example, 

Shahndn-ushshir), or as the Moabitic Shafamanu (II. R. 67, 1. 60). There 

may be added to the illustrations in the text, the fact that the name of 

"Solomon" has also been found in a Palmyrene inscription (compare de 

Vogiie, S/jrie Centrale, I., p. 55, No. 76). Tiglath-pileser III. is identical 

with the biblical king of the same ntime (2 Kings xv. 29, &c.). 

107 



108 SOLOMON'S WISE CHOICE. 

fulfilment of a promise made to Bathsheba after the death 
of Absalom, the heir-apparent, or, perhaps, even before it. 
Adonijah, his half-brother, an older son of David, still 
lived, and had already plotted to gain the crown before 
his father's death ; but his attempt had been foiled, and 
Solomon had been formally anointed and seated on the 
throne as heir at that time. There v^as, hence, no opposi- 
tion to his accession. The wife of Uriah had succeeded 
in displacing the sons of all her rivals, and she had 
attained the supreme dignity of mother of the king. 

The training of Solomon must have been a mingling of 
very different influences. The prophet ISTathan seems to 
have been what we might call his guardian or tutor, but 
it is a difficult task to guide a prince. The better side of 
Davids nature would tell in the lad's favour ; but he lived 
in the air of an Oriental court, with its rival families, its 
scandals, its extravagance, and its various shadows as well 
as lights. The result was seen in his riper character. In 
his earlier reign enthusiastic for Jehovah, and the builder 
of the Temple at Jerusalem, he ended by building temples 
and altars on the heights around, to the foul idols of the 
neighbouring heathen. Gifted with splendid abilities, wise 
to a proverb, and versed in all the learning of his day, he 
was finally to show himself so grossly selfish, as to oppress 
and drain the resources of his people, for his personal 
glory and enjoyment. Beginning his reign with a prayer 
for an understanding heart, he developed into a sensualist 
with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. 
Nor did all his wisdom save him from so reigning, that 
the empire bequeathed him by David was lost to his son, 
by an outburst of popular indignation at the wrongs they 
had suffered at his hand. 



Solomon's wise choice. 109 

An incident recorded of the beginning of Solomon's 
reign is in keeping with the ideal of kingly glory which 
he had learned from his father, as is shown by several of 
the psalms. The fear of Jehovah was still his ruling 
characteristic, and a just and pure government his highest 
ambition. There was as yet no temple in Jerusalem ; and 
though David had raised a sacred tent in Jerusalem, and 
placed the ark within it, the sacredness of many hill-tops, 
or high-places, was still believed in by many, — especially 
that of the hill of Gibeon, the place of the old tabernacle,^ 
about six miles north of the Holy City. Thither Solomon 
determined to make a royal progress, that he might offer 
sacrifices, on a scale becoming his dignity, at the altar 
before the venerable Tabernacle of the wilderness times, 
which still stood, worn and venerable, on that sacred 
height. Setting forth from Jerusalem with the high state 
so dear to his nature, attended by the chiefs of thousands 
and of hundreds, the judges, governors, and heads of the 
fathers, summoned from all parts of the land to add 
splendour to the ceremony, he moved forward with high 
pomp on his short journey. Fewer than a thousand burnt- 
offerings were held insufficient; but he may not have 
waited till the tedious rites were ended, many days being 
required for their completion. Amidst the clash of cym- 
bals and the strains of song and harp, he at least inaugu- 
rated the grand service, he and the people kneeling before 
God as the smoke of the victims rose from the altar. 

At last evening fell, and the king, excited and wearied, 
lay down to rest. But as he slept, the thoughts of his 
waking hours took shape, as they so often do with our- 
selves, in the wonders of a dream. As he lay unconscious 

1 2 Ghron. i. 3. 



110 Solomon's wise choice. 

in sleep, Jehovah, whom he had sought to honour, ap- 
peared to him ; wc know not in what way, but assuredly 
not in any human form, — perhaps as a voice recognised as 
Divine. The sleeper presently heard the words, "Ask 
what I shall give thee." The answer of Solomon was 
admirable : " Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant David, 
my father, great mercy, according as he walked before 
Thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of 
heart with Thee ; and Thou hast kept for him this great 
kindness, that Thou hast given him a son to sit on his 
throne, as it is this day. And now, Jehovah my God, 
Thou hast made Thy servant king, instead of David my 
father; and I am but a little child," — a man in years, 
indeed, but I feel like a child in my great position, still 
new to me ; "I know not how to go out or come in," — I do 
not know how to transact the business of my high office, 
to which I have daily to go forth from my house, to sit in 
the gate, — " and Thy servant is in the midst of Thy people 
which Thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot 
be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give, there- 
fore, Thy servant a mind clear in its discernment" — full 
of insight — " to judge Thy people, that I may discriminate 
rightly between good and bad," — for as king I am the 
supreme judge of all causes ; " for who is able" — unassisted 
from above — " to judge this, Thy so great a people? " 

Here the dream seemed to the dreamer to end, and he 
lay waiting, in his imagination, for a reply from the vision. 
Presently it came, for " the speech pleased Jehovah, 
that Solomon had asked this thing." " Because," said the 
voice, " thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for 
thyself long life : neither hast asked riches for thyself, 
nor hast asked the life of thine enemies ; but hast asked 



Solomon's wise choice. Ill 

for thyself insight to understand how to judge rightly," 
— when thou sittest to decide as king ; " behold, I have 
done according to thy word : lo, I have given thee a wise 
and a discerning mind ; so that there was none like thee 
before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto 
thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast 
not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall 
not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. 
And if thou wilt walk in My ways, to keep My statutes 
and My commandments, as thy father David did walk, 
then I will lengthen thy days." 

At this moment, we are told, Solomon awoke ; " and, 
behold, it was a dream." To have had such a dream, 
however, shows on what his mind ran in those early days. 
Well would it have been for him, if his later years had 
fulfilled the golden promise of this fair beginning ! 



THE TEMPLE, 

The Tabernacle of the wilderness had apparently been set 
up, first, after the tribes had crossed the Jordan at Gilgal, 
on the slope between that stream and the hills of the 
western side. How long it stood in the circle of huge 
stones, which the word " Gilgal " seems to indicate, is not 
told ; but after the conquest of Central Palestine it was 
transferred to Shiloh, where a levelled space on the low 
hill, with rough walls stretching hither and thither, seems 
to mark the site where it rose on stone supports, half 
temple and half tent. In Samuel's day, however, the 
fierce inroads of the Philistines from the rich plain on the 
sea-coast, seem to have culminated in the burning of 
Shiloh and its consequent destruction as the sanctuary of 
the nation. Already in the days of Jeremiah, six hundred 
years before Christ, it had long lain waste ; ^ and so com- 
pletely did it, in the end, pass out of notice, that its very 
locality was unknown till discovered by Dr. Edward 
Eobinson, of New York, under the name of Seilun. There 
is now a wretched hamlet of mud and stone huts on the 
slope, and a wilderness of ruined walls over the crest of 
the low hill, but no other relic of its ancient population, 
except a number of rock tombs in a short side valley 
leading to the spring of the neighbourhood. Yet few 
spots might be more fertile, if there were men to till it. 

1 Jer. vii. 12, 14. 
112 



THE TEMPLE. 113 

The venerable Tabernacle was, fortunately, saved from 
the wreck of Shiloh, having, no doubt, been removed 
before the sacking and burning of the place. It next 
appears at Nob, then on the hill of Glibeon, a few miles 
north of Jerusalem ; and thither, as we have seen, Solomon 
went, with the state so dear to him, to offer sacrifice on 
the old brazen altar of Bezaleel, before the worn but 
sacred tent. Hitherto there had been no other national 
sanctuary, until David raised a new holy tent in Jerusalem, 
popular opinion preventing his building a temple like 
those of the heathen communities round. There had been, 
however, from the earliest times, a custom of offering 
sacrifices, or, at least, of worshipping, on a great many of 
the rounded hill tops, over all the land, — spots selected in 
those simple ages as nearer the heavens, and thus nearer 
the Divine Being. To this day, indeed, this immemorial 
usage prevails in Palestine, the very name given to the 
low-domed building which crowns some height in almost 
every landscape, being virtually the same as that used 
for similar structures even before the Hebrew invasion. 
To-day, such a spot is called a mukam. A similar one, 
without a building, is called a makom by Jacob. From 
their position on hill- tops these primitive sanctuaries were 
naturally called "high places," but it did not suit the 
policy of Solomon to leave them their old importance. To 
centralise national worship at Jerusalem would make his 
capital illustrious, would bring wealth to it, would add to 
his own glory, and would give him the control of the 
priesthood. In Providence it served higher ends ; but his 
ideas, we may be sure, were more worldly than spiritual. 

Having resolved, therefore, to build a permanent temple, 
the king raised vast levies of workmen from the tribes, by 

H 



114 THE TEMPLE. 

the odious STstem of forced labour. A treaty with Hiram 
of Tyre secured him a supply of cedar from Lebanou, 
which was cut by great gangs of Hebrews sent thither, 
then dragged to the coast, tied into rafts, floated to Joppa, 
and finally, at huge expense of toil and misery, dragged 
up the hills to Jerusalem, twenty-five hundred feet above 
the sea. Quarries were opened under the wall of the city 
on the north side, the stone there being admirably adapted 
for the new sanctuary. Years of labour hollowed out vast 
recesses beneath the city, — so vast that it seemed to me, 
as I eroped my way through them bv the lieht of a candle, 
as if the whole town were honeycombed. There, in 
darkness, except for their lamps,, the poor slaves cut out 
the vast stones needed for the Temple ; others, in due 
time, dragging them on sledges, to designated points. 
Tyrian builders and architects supplied the skill and 
knowledge wanting to the Hebrews, and at last the 
Temple stood complete, — a building very small in com- 
parison with a modem cathedral ; for it was only about 
ninety feet long, thirty feet broad, and forty-five feet high, 
though it stood in a wide space of nearly tliirty-five 
acres, in shape like the page of an ordinary book, if one 
trimmed the edges rather badly, so as to spoil their 
straight line. 

The dedication was a wonderful scene. Thousands of 
oxen and sheep burned on the altar. The great ones of 
Israel, with the king at their head, and the full body 
of the piiests and Levites, lent splendour to the 
occasion, while the myriads of worshippers gave it deep 
solemnity. It is worthy of notice that Solomon seems 
to have acted as priest as well as king, superseding the 
Hi^'h Priest himself, both in sacrificincf and in giving 



THE TEMPLE. 115 

the benediction to the people. The acceptance by God 
of the sanctuary thus consecrated to Him, is one of the 
most striking incidents recorded in the Old Testament. 
Curiously enough,- there is a Sikh temple in the Punjaub 
in which one sees a great brass plate, dating about 
twenty years back, on which, with the attestation of 
high dignitaries, it is recorded that when, at that time, 
the affairs of the nation were very low, and special 
prayer had been made in the temple, the splendour of 
God suddenly filled the house with unbearable bright- 
ness. Very strange, is it not ? But then God accepts 
in every nation those who truly seek Him. 

The prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple 
is an exquisite composition, — lowly, yet lofty ; high in 
its conception of human duty and of Divine mercy ; per- 
fect in expression. That such a man should have been 
marked by other traits, recorded of him, is a strange proof 
of the mingling of evil with good in the best of us. 



THE FAME OF SOLOMON, 

The immense fame of Solomon in his day is strikingly 
shown by the deep impression that it left on his own 
and subsequent ages. In the time of Christ, " the glory 
of Solomon " was the ideal of royal magnificence ; and to 
the present day, his name survives, with those of Mmrod 
and Alexander the Great, as a legendary wonder from the 
remote past, among all the tribes of Western Asia. 

In his own age, the glory of the Jewish sultan had 
already become the subject of widespread rumour, even 
distant countries catching the story of his wisdom and 
munificence, from the travelling merchant or the crew 
of some far-sailed Tarshish ship. Among other remote 
regions to which his fame penetrated, was Sabaea, or 
Sheba, a district of Arabia Felix, famous in those early 
ages for its incense, balm, and myrrh, from the trade 
in which it was said to be one of the richest countries 
of antiquity. It lay along the east shore of the Eed 
Sea, just north of what is now the British military post 
of Aden; so that a journey to Jerusalem by land was 
a great undertaking, the Holy City being separated from 
it by the whole length of the Eed Sea, and the further 
distance from the peninsula of Sinai. 

The monarch of this glowing realm, one of the very 
hottest places in the world, was a queen, whose name 
is not recorded. In her scorched and stony, though still, 

116 



THE FAME OF SOLOMON. 117 

it would seem, wealthy country, she had become so 
excited by the stories brought her — probably from the 
report of sailors in the ships sent to Punt on the Somali 
coast, outside Bab-el-Mandeb, by Solomon — that she could 
not rest, till she had made a pilgrimage, to see for 
herself what was the world's talk, as well as make 
acquaintance with the wonderful sultan with whom it 
was associated. 

Summoning, therefore, a very great train of officials 
and attendants of all ranks, and for all offices, honourable 
or menial, and collecting a great body of camels, which 
alone could undertake such a journey, in such a land, 
she set out on her progress. Any one who has visited 
the Eed Sea can imagine the difficulty of what must 
have seemed to ordinary minds such a wild adventure. 
Not only would camels be needed for riding, for the 
queen and her suite, including who knows how many of 
her own sex as attendants ; a vast number would be 
required for the water, food, tent equipage, and house- 
hold utensils; not to speak of those set apart to bear 
the gifts to be presented to Solomon, which must have 
themselves made a herd ; for it is Oriental etiquette to 
make as lavish a display as possible in connection with 
the presentation of gifts to any royal personage. She 
had from eighteen hundred to two thousand miles to 
travel with all this extraordinary surrounding, — a distance 
requiring, probably, not less than four or five months' 
continuous advance, cumbered as the speed must have 
been by the nature of the country, and the multiplied 
difficulties attending the movement of such a strange 
host. The cost to the swarthy queen must have been 
quite beyond ordinary computation. 



118 THE FAME OF SOLOMON. 

At last, however, she had crossed the dry limestone 
uplands of the south of Palestine, and drew near the 
city for which she was making, — a very poor and small 
place, no doubt, compared with our modern towns. The 
excitement at her approach must have been immense. 
In our day, a visit of a great potentate, from some region 
beyond the bounds of the commonly known lands, is 
impossible; for all the earth is, as it were, near us, in 
these times; but it was not so a thousand years before 
Christ, when the Jew knew only a very small part of 
the earth indeed. Solomon would be in all his glory, 
we may be quite certain, when she finally made her 
entrance to his petty capital. He would not let himself 
be outdone in magnificence, whoever had to pay for 
the display. But though it might be a grand time for 
him, the thousands of slaves who had to prepare for the 
tremendous round of ceremonials, would have a very 
different opinion of it. What he gave his guest we do 
not know; likely very little, if we may judge from his 
conduct to Hiram ; but he got a great deal, — a hundred and 
twenty talents of gold, worth, perhaps, over a million 
pounds sterling, besides a great store of spices, and lavish 
gifts of precious stones. The buildings Solomon had 
raised filled her with wonder, and the lavishness of his 
establishment, in all its details, was still more astonishing ; 
but his wisdom was the most overpowering of all her 
experiences. How it w^as shown, we do not know ; but 
legend tells us, in Oriental fashion, that it displayed itself 
in the solving of riddles and answering of hard questions. 
Thus, he told which were boys and which girls, in a crowd 
of five hundred of each sex ; the whole thousand dressed 
alike. He drilled a hole through a pearl, at once, 



THE FAME OF SOLOMON. 119 

without breaking it ; he threaded a diamond cut through 
in zigzags, using a worm to draw a thread after it ; and 
he filled a crystal goblet with water neither from heaven 
nor earth, by driving a wild horse furiously and gathering 
its sweat. The Bible account is much more digniHed. 
" She communed with him of all that was in her heart," 
and received answers to all her questions. 

A memorial of the visit of the Queen of Sheba was 
believed to remain in the balsam groves of Jericho, 
famous even in the days of Christ. The Abyssinians, 
moreover, resting on her title of " Queen of the South," 
claim her as the ancestress, through Solomon, of tlieir 
kings ; but this is, of course, only foolish ignorance. 
That the incident of the visit should be set forth at 
such length in Scripture shows the extreme antiquity 
of the narrative ; for it could not have seemed so wonder- 
ful in a later .age. But to the Hebrews it was one of 
the greatest honours that could have been paid their 
sovereign, and so deep was the impression it made, that 
we find Isaiah, centuries later, speaking of Sheba as 
bringing gold and incense^ to the Messianic successor 
of the Son of David. 

1 Isa. Ix. 6. 



SOLOMON'S SHORTCOMINGS. 

The comparatively few years from the union of the 
ti-ibes of Israel under David, to their permanent separa- 
tion under Eehoboam, form the brief moment of Jewish 
gior}- as a state. That J udah, which had no high ancestral 
claims, like Ephraim and Manasseh, the heirs of the 
great name of Joseph, should be allowed supremacy even 
for a time, was due only to the surpassing abilities of 
David as a warrior and administrator, and to the exigencies 
of the nation after the virtual extinction of the house 
of Saul. There had always, in fact, been a deep-seated 
rivalry between Judah, which chose to stand alone, 
with its centre at Hebron — the tribe of Simeon, scattered 
over the south country, being gradually merged in it, — 
and the rest of the tribes, who accepted the headship 
of Ephraim. The only parallel that occurs to me, is 
the inter-relations of the various Irish or Scotch Celtic 
septs, each tenacious of its tribal rights, but many willing 
to rally, on occasion, to the banner of a particular clan, 
to which they paid a shadowy homage as their titular 
head. Thus, the fact that the clan Campbell, in Scotland, 
stood aloof from Prince Charles Edward in 1745, hoping 
to profit by its loyalty to the house of Brunswick, and 
thus gain the headship of the clans as a whole, was 
much more the secret of the wide gathering round the 
rival Hag of the " Lost Cause," than any devotion to the 

120 



Solomon's shortcomings. 121 

Stuarts. Such a jealousy glowed in the bosoms of all 
the Jewish tribes, at their subjection to the hated and 
condemned suzerainty of Judah, and made it certain that 
only the greatest wisdom could maintain the unity of 
the nation, under kings throned in Jerusalem. 

Samuel, the great prophet-reformer, had seen the dark 
side of the revolution for which the tribes clamoured, 
when they demanded a king. Free till then, he knew 
that monarchy would copy the spirit of the courts around, 
and fetter the nation under despotism, in spite of every 
precaution. He did not, indeed, foreshadow the im- 
possibility of a lasting union under one crown ; but in his 
picture of the slavery and degradation, sure, in his 
opinion, to follow the great change from their ancient 
tribal simplicity, he indicated the causes which led in- 
evitably to the revolt of Jeroboam. 

The grinding oppression of Solomon might have ceased 
under his successors, but the tone of the nation, its social 
condition, and its real prosperity, had been permanently 
affected. A splendid court meant the wealth of the few 
and the poverty of the many. Immense outlay, to main- 
tain crowds of officers and attendants, who, personally, 
added nothing to the wealth of the community, was a 
terrible drain on the substance of a people like Israel. 
Nor was even this the worst. Rank aspired to what was 
fancied becoming state. The modest field which Saul 
himself had been content to plough, no longer sufficed. 
Great men sought to add field to field, and to raise fine 
mansions, around v/hich should stretch a landscape, 
once cheerful with the smoke of many happy cottages, 
but now left lonely, to swell the grandeur of the noble. 
A proletariat was thus, for the first time, created in Israel. 



122 Solomon's shoetcomings. 

The little homesteads, held since the days of Joshua, 
were seized by violence, or cozened from their owners by 
craft. In the Prophets, we find a constant denunciation 
of the evil days on which they had fallen, — days when 
wealth accumulated, and men decayed. But their voices 
were lifted in vain. To the close of the monarchy, in 
both the ISTorth and South, there was no return to the 
bright days, when every house-father lived on his own 
ground, and when all had enough for their simple wants. 
How often must the Hebrew, as he saw some local mag- 
nate borne past by prancing horses, in his chariot, have 
thought of the time when Saul went out with a single 
slave, or servant, to seek his father's asses ! How often, 
when they heard of the splendours of Jerusalem, inside 
its palaces, with their gardens and fountains, their vessels 
of gold and silver, the thousand wives and concubines of 
Solomon, or the less offensive harems of his successors ; 
or when the great king flashed past, on his progresses to 
the coolness of Lebanon, when the hot sun made the 
South unpleasant, — must they have thought of the times 
when Gideon, the great deliverer of the nation, was not 
above threshing his own wheat, or when David was a 
shepherd on the uplands near Bethlehem ! Jewish mon- 
archy was fatal to the nation, as a whole, in its most 
vital interests. 

Nor was its result more happy in its influence on the 
national religion. In those early days, men were still 
very simple in their ideas. David grieved to be in Moab, 
twenty or thirty miles from Jerusalem, because it was 
under another god, Chemosh, instead of his own God, 
Jehovah. But he was true to his faith. Solomon, with 
bis less religious nature, came, in the end, to treat all 



Solomon's shortcomings. 123 

creeds as being much on a level,— partly from intellectual 
indifferentism, partly from a politic toleration, to keep 
the favour of those under or around him, and partly from 
the moral weakness towards his crowds of wives, entailed 
by unbridled sensuality, and partly, to propitiate the rulers 
of the surrounding nations, by providing for the worship 
of their local gods by visitors attracted to Jerusalem for 
trade. It may, indeed, have been one object of Solomon 
by such temples, to lure business men from outside, to 
settle in his capital. Whatever the causes, the evil that 
he did lived after him. Idol-worship could claim that he 
introduced it. The high places on the yellow slope, south 
of that known as the Mount of Olives, were multiplied 
over the land. Jehovah, as only their tribal God, was 
too often forgotten, to worship the divinities of the 
great nations of Western Asia, the gods of Phoenicia, 
Assyria, Syria, or Babylon ; though this last city was, in 
reality, the Eome of antiquity ; the centre of ecclesi- 
astical authority over all Western Asia, and even in 
Egypt, under the reign of Khu-n-Aten. 

Yet all nations are true to the spirit of their origin. 
The colours laid at the roots of the Southern kingdom by 
David, showed themselves, more or less abidingly and 
vividly, till, after temporary lapses, the little nation left 
to his house, returned, in Babylon, to the worship of 
David's God, in spite of the idolatry of Solomon and too 
many of his successors. In the same way, the conserva- 
tism which clung to Eehoboam, preserved Judah from 
the fierce revolutions of the Northern kingdom, which, 
beginning with revolt, continued to be marked by 
violent changes of dynasty. The last king of Judah was 
a descendant of the shepherd-king of Bethlehem ; the 



124 Solomon's shortcomings. 

last ruler of the Northern kingdom was the close of a 
series of royal families. And as Jeroboam founded his 
kingdom in idolatry, so it continued to be more or less 
idolatrous, to the end, with no such shot colour of Jehovah- 
worship gleaming through its history, and triumphing in 
the end, as marks the history of Judah. 



SOLOMON'S IDOLATRY. 

The rise of the Jewish empire under David had been pos- 
sible from the temporary decline of Assyria, which was 
no longer, in his day, or for some generations after, able to 
dominate Syria and Palestine as in earlier times. It must 
have been difficult, however, for a people so different from 
those around them, in many ways, as the Jews, to main- 
tain the supremacy over wide regions, gained through the 
wars of David; and hence even the reign of Solomon, 
though he was specially "the man of peace," seems to 
have been more or less disturbed, especially toward its 
close, by attempts of the races subject to him to assert 
their independence. Edom and Syria forced him to send 
expeditions against them, or at least to defend himself 
against their hostility. But he was able to preserve his 
kingdom in outward unity till his death, though elements 
of disruption, which were then to become only too power- 
ful, were already a source of anxiety in his later years. 

The secret of this state of things is to be sought partly 
in the policy of " the wise king " in his relations to the 
heathenism of the nations around. One would have 
thought that a man honoured by a Divine vision, and 
cautioned by it, that, if he turned away and forsook God's 
statutes and His commandments, which God had set before 
him, and should go and serve other gods and worship 
them, God would pluck up his house and his people from 

125 



126 SOLOMONS IDOLATRY. 

the land, by the roots, and cast them out, and make them 
a proverb and a bj-word among all nations,^ could not 
possibly transgress in this particular direction. Still 
more would it seem impossible for oue thus to apostatise, 
who had signalised His reign by building a great temple 
to Jehovah, and dedicating it to his worship as the one 
only God, amidst an accumulation of testimonies, from 
Jehovah Himself, of His Divine majesty, and of His ac- 
ceptance of the sanctuary thus consecrated to Him. Yet so 
strangely is our character made up of contradictions, 
that, as I have said, it was to Solomon the introduction 
of heathen worship to Jerusalem was due, with all 
its train of national suffering and humiliation, ending 
with the overthrow of the State and the captivity in 
Babylon. 

This terrible error and crime was the penalty of a 
previous offence. Anxious to bind to his throne, in close 
alliance, the neighbouring races and kingdoms, the builder 
of the Temple "gave himself to foreign women." ^ His 
worse nature, perhaps, prompted his higher, to veil his 
monstrous sensuality under a cloak of wider state-craft 
and greater liberality than his times sanctioned, so as to 
deceive even himself into a palliation of his sin. He may 
have come to fancy that there was good in all creeds, and 
that the same God was worshipped in all, under different 
names, — an opinion too common even in our own day. 
He may, thus, have lost a due estimate of what was false 
in the different forms of heathenism, and played the philo- 
sopher with himself, by fine spun theories of a hidden 
meaning supposed to shine out from behind theii* outward 
rites, hcwever hateful. Perhaps he looked on Baal, 

2 Chron. vii. 19, 20. ^ i Kings xi. 1-8. 



SOLOMON'S IDOLATRY. 127 

Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Jehovah, as only different forms 
of nature-worship, all substantially true; for a subtle 
mind can reason itself to believe almost anything. 

From whatever cause, or variety of causes, it may have 
been, Solomon permitted a "high place" to be built on 
" the hill east of Jerusalem," for " Chemosh, the abomina- 
tion of the Moabites," for " Moloch, the abomination of 
the children of Ammon," and for each of the other gods of 
" all his foreign wives." When we remember that he had 
taken princesses from Sidon, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and 
the Hittite tribes, it is clear that the heights around the 
Holy City must have been crowned with a number of 
idolatrous sanctuaries, each of which would have its 
priesthood, its own sacrifices, not infrequently such as 
nature abhors, and its own clouds of incense, rising up as 
if in rivalry to that which ascended from the altar of 
Jehovah, in the Temple. It is, besides, expressly told us, 
that Solomon, not contented with sanctioning such insults 
to the God of his race, — the one true God, — himself went 
after Ashtoreth and Milcom, or Moloch. ^ 

Wide corruption of the national morality must have 
resulted from such an example set by the throne. In ever- 
broadening circles it spread through the community an 
irreligiousness fatal in the end. Nor was his evil course 
without the worst effect on the king himself; for, while 
we find prophets at his side in the beghming of his reign, 
there is no mention of them in his later years. 

1 1 Kings xi. 5. 



CLOSE OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 

The reign of Solomon was the spring- tide of Hebrew great- 
ness, but it began to ebb even before the wise king died. 
A far-reaching empire; a merchant navy bearing the 
Jewish flag to distant lands of the East ; a wide and pro- 
fitable trade with the countries round; great palaces in 
Jerusalem, including the Temple; imperial splendour in 
the court ; and much else, — so dazzled the imagination in 
after centuries, that " the glory of Solomon " became the 
proverbial expression, in Israel, for supreme magnificence. 
But the material splendour of this noonday of the race 
was its least claim to honour ; it was, also, a period of great 
literary activity, for to this time must be referred the 
development of intellectual culture in various directions. 
The religious philosophy constantly recurring in the later 
portions of Scripture, under the name of Wisdom, 
dates from this age. Eeligious poems like the Song of 
Songs ; pithy sentences which have ever since been recog- 
nised as proverbs ; treatises on natural science, either 
by Solomon or those stimulated to such studies by his 
example, — were only some of the fruits of increased 
mental activity in the nation. 

But all this light was, unfortunately, attended by an 
ever-lengthening shadow. No people of antiquity more 
jealously guarded popular liberty, even under kings, than 
the Jews; and Solomon was, before long, felt to be 

128 



CLOSE OF SOLOMON'S REIGN. 129 

endangering this, by introducing a despotism which, if 
not checked, would reduce them to the level of the en- 
slaved nations around. The taxation grew ruinously 
oppressive, especially from the forms in which, partly, it 
was levied. The cost of the Temple must have been great, 
but the profits of the king's commercial revenues may 
have defrayed it largely. Yet the objection of E'athan 
that God had been pleased to dwell in a " tent " through 
the past, and did not need a great temple, like the temples 
of the outside nations, may well have expressed the dis- 
satisfaction of the tribes at the undertaking, as not only 
an imitation of heathen usages, but as centralising at 
Jerusalem the worship hitherto paid on all the heights of 
the land, and thus, at once, robbing local shrines of their 
glory, and raising Jerusalem to a political centre, with 
the king supreme, alike over the priesthood and all tribal 
institutions. Then came the lavish outlay on a series of 
palaces ; the creation of a harem on the vastest scale ; the 
hugeness of the civil list, to maintain numberless court 
officials and the multitudinous retinues of his queens, con- 
cubines, and dignitaries, and the unlimited expenditure 
to gratify the tastes and whims of the great sultan. The 
private domains of the crown, though very large, no longer 
provided sufficient revenue, though increased by the tri- 
bute of subject nations, the gifts of great visitors, — such as 
the Queen of Sheba, — and the profits from foreign commerce 
and trade licenses. The whole country was divided into 
twelve sections, each of which had to furnish contribu- 
tions to the royal table and the other expenses of the court. 
It seems, indeed, probable that, in the later years of the 
king, a poll tax was levied universally, though such a tax 

was eypecially hateful to Jew and Canaanite alike. 

I 



130 CLOSE OF Solomon's keign. 

Still worse, a system of forced labour, to carry out the 
grand conceptions of Solomon, in his palaces, roads, forti- 
fications, gardens, reservoirs, and aqueducts, was estab- 
lished, thus introducing virtual slavery, like that which 
prevailed in Egypt till lately. Thirty thousand men 
were forced to fell trees on Lebanon, or toil in the 
quarries under Jerusalem, — each division, of ten thou- 
sand, serving for four months in the year ; that is, every 
third month. Nor was this all. Seventy thousand men 
were told off as porters and labourers, while eighty thou- 
sand more were sent to Lebanon and the stone quarries, 
to prepare the rough material for final use ; this vast 
army being kept to its task by no fewer than thirty-two 
hundred overseers. 

The suffering thus entailed must have been terrible. 
To 'labour, for years, in dark, damp "quarries, in rough 
mountain forests, or in the sore toil of dragging beams 
or squared stones, doubtless told heavily on the population. 
No wonder there was dissatisfaction, especially when the 
haughty Ephraim had thus to serve like a slave, for the 
glory of Jerusalem and Judah. 

But the avenger was at hand. Solomon himself re- 
ceived a Divine intimation that the kingdom would be 
rent from him for his idolatry, apart from other short- 
comings, and Judah, alone, be left to his son. The instru- 
ment of this great revolution proved to be one Jeroboam, 
from Zaretan, in the Jordan district, — a man of bright 
intelligence, who had been employed by Solomon as 
superintendent of the task work exacted from the northern 
tribes, on the fortifications of Jerusalem. To strengthen 
the new capital was, to such men, intensely hateful, as 
tending to establish the supremacy of the tribe they 



CLOSE OF Solomon's keign. . 131 

regarded as their rival, and to lower the importance of the 
rest of the tribes for ever. 

Of the death of Solomon we know nothing. Things 
continued outwardly calm till he passed away, excepting 
when subject communities strove to regain independence. 
But the ground-swell of discontent was already heaving 
under the smooth glitter of his monarchy ; and the folly 
of his son ere long heightened the storm, till, in one wild 
surge, the glory of the wise king's empire disappeared 
for ever. 



JEROBOAM'S REVOLT. 

The union of the twelve Hebrew tribes under David had 
been effected with great difficulty, and only after the 
virtual extirpation of the house of Saul, and the suppres- 
sion of the revolt of Absalom, had left David without a 
rival. He was a hero, indeed, of whom the whole race 
might be proud ; for he had raised the Hebrew mountain- 
tribes from obscurity and weakness, to empire and fame, 
leaving them a dominion extending from the valley of 
the Orontes to the Pdver of Egypt, and from the Euphrates 
to the Great Sea. It was natural, therefore, that they 
should continue united under his son ; and, had Solomon 
been wise in all respects, a national feeling might have 
been intensified under his rule, which would have made 
the union permanent. 

His selfish ambition, however, to play the part of an 
Assyrian sultan, alike in the greatness of his domestic 
estabhshment, the splendour of his state, and the magnifi- 
cence of his undertakings, was too severe a strain even for 
a reign so prosperous, or a treasury filled with the wealth 
of a mighty commerce, and the tribute of far-stretching 
territories. The support of his palaces and their count- 
less inmates not only drained the revenue of extensive 
crown lands, but necessitated the exaction of heavy 
requisitions from the whole country. 

His great undertakings, moreover, — the building of the 

132 



Jeroboam's revolt. 133 

Temple, the fortification of Jerusalem, the erection of 
palaces in the capital and elsewhere, besides the laying 
out of roads and other public works, — led to the institu- 
tion of a system of forced labour, levying a -similar en- 
forcement of unpaid toil, not only from the virtually 
enslaved remnants of the Canaanites, but from the 
general population of the open country — the free-born 
manhood of the nation; and what this implied we may 
imagine, from the sufferings of the fellaheen of Egypt, 
in our own day, from the corvSe. It was no wonder that 
under such circumstances, discontent spread wide and 
deeply, or that men resolved to demand securities against 
the continuance of such abuses, at the beginning of the 
next reign ; for, while Solomon lived, they could only 
submit. 

The situation was rendered still more dangerous, politi- 
cally, from the sectional rivalries of the tribes. Ephraim, 
as the greatest among them, and the heir, with Manasseh, 
of the traditional glory of Joseph, to whom, on the Mle, 
the Hebrew race owed everything, had always borne 
itself as the natural leader of its brethren. That Judah 
should, under David, have risen to the supremacy, and 
that Jerusalem should have become the capital, rather 
than Shechem, was a bitter grievance, which needed only 
some display of harshness, or want of tact, on the part of 
the house of David, the representative of Judah, to lead 
to the most disastrous results. 

Such was the state of things when Eehoboam — the 
only son of Solomon, so far as we know, notwithstanding 
the great king's vast harem — ascended the throne, at the 
age, it would seem, of about forty. He was the son of an 
Ammonite princess, and, as such, apart from his father's 



134 JEROBOAM'S REVOLT. 

bad example, would naturally grow up with despotic 
ideas, alien to the hereditary freedom asserted and enjoyed 
by his subjects. Saul and David, and, indeed, Solomon 
him. self, had been confirmed by the popular voice, in 
their sovereignty, before it was recognised, and the Ten 
Tribes, led by Ephraim, resolved that this should be 
repeated in the case of Eehoboam, — their acceptance of his 
rule depending on his consent to reform the abuses under 
which they had suffered, at the hand of his father. 

In all revolutions a trusted popular leader is essential ; 
and the man was ready, as well as the hour. Jeroboam, 
an Ephraimite, in the service of Solomon, had shown such 
ability and force of character in connection with the forti- 
fication of Jerusalem, that the king had promoted him to 
high office, as a direct representative of the crown, making 
him head over the fiscal and general affairs of the northern 
tribes. As such, he had the state of a governor, three 
hundred chariots forming his military array, to keep the 
king's peace in Ephraim and elsewhere. The murmurs of 
his fellow-tribesmen, however, and the facilities offered 
by his position, for raising a force, kindled ambitious 
dreams in his mind; and these took still deeper hold on 
him, from the declaration of a prophet, whispered in his 
ear, with all secrecy, that he would, one day, be king of 
the whole land, except Judah. 

But his time had not yet come. Solomon, hearing of 
his treachery, had directed his arrest, and he only saved 
his life by fleeing to Egypt, the asylum of all enemies of 
the Jewish king. There, he found, not only protection, 
but exceptional favour, Shishak, the Pharaoh of the day, 
giving him a princess of the blood as wife. In Ephraim 
and the North his popularity was, perhaps, intensified by 



jekoboam's reyolt. 135 

his exile ; for, on his return, at the death of Solomon, he 
seems at once to have taken the leadership of the discon- 
tented tribes, gathering their chief men round him, and 
even building a stronghold for his defence, at his native 
town or villac^e of Zeredah or Zaretan. 

Meanwhile, he acted with careful moderation. An 
assembly of the representatives of the Ten Tribes, very 
numerous in the aggregate, was convened in the pleasant 
valley of Shechem, between mounts Gerizim and Ebal, to 
which the grave of Joseph gave special sanctity in the 
eyes of a multitude, whose proudest honour lay in their 
descent from that patriarch, or connection with his name. 
At this great gathering, Eehoboam appeared with all 
state, to receive homage ; but before it was offered, Jero- 
boam, as the spokesman of the occasion, came forward, no 
doubt with due humility, and begged that the king should 
promise to remove the oppressions laid on the nation by 
his father. Had Eehoboam assented, the disruption of 
the kingdom might have been delayed, but it could hardly 
have been permanently avoided. He acted, however, 
with a mad folly which gave Jeroboam an instant 
triumph. 

Asking three days in which to prepare his answer, he 
sought the opinion, first, of the old counsellors of his 
father, who wisely told him to give way for the moment, 
and he would secure the abiding loyalty of the tribes. 
But to yield was against the grain of the would-be despot. 
Turning to the men of his own age round him, — flatterers, 
ready to say whatever they fancied would please, — he 
asked what they thought. " Tell them," said they, " 
king ! that you are astonished at their audacity. It is 
for you, not for them, to dictate. Let them know that 



136 jeeoboa.m's eeyolt. 

you are master, and that, if your father kept them in 
their proper place, you are still more able to do so ; that 
they will find your hand so heavy that even your little 
fineer will be weightier than your father's whole strengrth ; 
and that, if they give any trouble, you will increase the 
burdens your father laid on them, till they will think 
themselves no longer scourged only with the taskmaster's 
whip, but with a metal-tipped knout, which will sting 
them like a scorpion." 

The foolish king, flattered into taking this insane 
ad^T-ce, soon found his mistake, on repeating such haughty 
insolence to the assembly. Forthwith, an ominous cry, 
the very shout raised by Shebna when he revolted against 
David, rose far and near. " What is the house of David 
to us ? What blood is there between us ? Judah and 
Da\T.d have a portion in each other, for they are one race ; 
but Ephraim and the Xorth are from Joseph ! To your 
tents, Israel ; leave your houses ; go out to the field and 
win your independence ! " The revolution had conquered. 
Judah was helpless against such a rising. The whole 
country, outside the southern tribes, was in rebellion. 
Israel — that is, the whole Hebrew nation, excepting a 
small remnant, hardly boasting more than the petty 
territory, from Jerusalem, south — was lost to Eehoboam. 
Solomon's empire was shattered. Far and near, it had 
passed under the rule of Jeroboam. 



JEROBOAM'S POLICY. 

The first care of Jeroboam on receiving from the Ten 
Tribes the sovereignty over their wide territory, was to 
fortify his western capital, Shechem, the present Nablus. 
Its central position made it very suitable for a metropolis 
and state residence, apart from its sacred associations, 
dating back to the time of Abraham and the patriarchs, 
and from its being the national gathering-place of the 
people, when summoned on great political or religious 
occasions. 

It was, moreover, one of the pleasantest spots in the 
country ; for its very name, Shechem, means a shoulder, 
and hints at its being the watershed of the land ; abun- 
dant springs flowing from it, both east and west. He 
needed another stronghold, however, for the wide districts 
now under him east of the Jordan, and secured it by 
fortifying Penuel, a place now unknown, on the north 
bank of the torrent Jabbok, which runs in a strong bright 
flood, beneath high cliffs, to the Jordan. Gideon had, long 
before, dismantled its walls,^ now rebuilt by the new king, 
doubtless by the same forced labour, for employing which 
Solomon had roused so much disloyalty as had cost 
Rehoboam the kingdom. 

But the political relations of Israel to Judah and the 
nations round, were not the only matters demanding the 

1 Judg. viii. 17. 
137 



138 • Jeroboam's policy. 

care of Jeroboam. Since the reisn of David, who had 
raised a central tabernacle for the national worship, in 
Jerusalem, but especially since the Temple, there, had 
been finished, under Solomon, the aim of the southern 
dynasty to make their capital the religious, as well as 
political metropolis of all the tribes, had become more 
and more successful. 

It was imperative that the religious centralisation 
planned by the house of David should, in some way, be 
counteracted, if the political independence of Jeroboam's 
kingdom was to be permanent. He did not think of intro- 
ducing a new god ; for, through all the history of Israel, 
the worship at Bethel and Dan was offered to Jehovah, 
as we see from the fact that, when Jehu destroyed 
Baal worship through the land, in his reforming zeal, 
he left the golden calves untouched ; recognising them 
as svmbols of the God of Israel. The ox. from its crreat 
strength, manifold usefulness, and fulness of life, was 
adopted widely through the East, as a symbol of the 
Godhead. It had, besides, in the case of Israel, the 
associations of remote antiquity to recommend it ; for 
their forefathers had doubtless seen, in Mesopotamia, 
the ox-headed Moloch, and the human-headed ox-forms 
at the gates of great palaces. They remembered the 
calf- idol made at Sinai, and the sacred Apis and Mnevis 
of Egypt, the land from which Jeroboam had just come. 
It would,, therefore, be easy to introduce a symbol with 
which the people were already more or less familiar, 
and to recommend it as supplying a visible emblem of 
Jehovah, which raised the holy place where it was set 
up, far above the empty holy of holies in the Temple at 
Jerusalem. 



Jeroboam's policy. 139 

Two places were chosen for the worship of Jehovah 
under this symbol : Bethel, already holy from remote 
times ; and Dan, where the idols of Micah had been 
venerated for centuries. The one spot would arrest the 
population of the southern districts, the other that of the 
north ; and Jerusalem would thus no longer attract either, 
and imperil its new loyalty. The calves were, apparently, 
made of copper, covered with thin plates of gold, and 
were set up in temples^ specially built for them, — "houses 
of high places," in the Hebrew; splendid enough, no 
doubt, to be counter-attractions to the rival sanctuary 
at Jerusalem, and, like it, built on heights, as specially 
sacred from their elevation towards the heavens, as if 
thus, naturally, alighting-places of the higher powers, 
rather than the lowlier ground beneath. 

A regular hierarchy was also established for the public 
rites of the new temples, but, as priests and Levites from 
the legal tribe were not available, Jeroboam admitted to 
the sacred offices men " from among all the people," 
though not belonging to the sacerdotal caste, the members 
of which, largely refusing to join the new movement, 
preferred to migrate to Judah, that they might be free to 
do duty at Jerusalem/^ To the orthodox Jew, the rites 
of Bethel and Dan were, thus, corrupted, at once by the 
introduction of an image as a sacred emblem, and by the 
officials of the two sanctuaries being irregular, and hence, 
as was supposed, unacceptable to Jehovah. 

Next to the Temple, the great feast of tabernacles was 
a special attraction to Jerusalem, which the new king felt 
it necessary for him in some way to counteract. It was 
the harvest-home of the year, and was known, by way 

1 2 Chron, xi. 13. 



140 Jeroboam's policy. 

of pre-eminence, as " the feast," ^ because it was the 
greatest and most frequented of the three yearly festivals. 
It was held in the seventh month, answering, more or 
less, to our September; for the Hebrew year began 
with March, as the English one did till last century .^ 
Jeroboam therefore appointed his rival feast to be cele- 
brated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month; that is, 
in our October. The journey of his people, as pilgrims, 
to the southern capital, for the great annual holiday, 
would thus, he hoped, be checked, if not entirely stopped. 
The fifteenth day was chosen, as that of the full moon, 
— the Jewish year being regulated by the lunar phases. 

The introduction of this new feast was made a great 
national event, in which the king himself took a prominent 
part, inaugurating the northern festival by going up the 
slope of the altar raised at Bethel, and burning incense 
to Jehovah, — thus consecrating, in his own way, the insti- 
tution he had created for political ends. 

1 1 Kings viii. 2. 
* The English legal year began on March 25 till 1752. 



THE GREAT DROUGHT UNDER AHAB. 

Omri, founder of Samaria, having need of as brilliant a 
marriage as possible for his son Ahab, who was to succeed 
him, had achieved what must have seemed the crowning 
triumph of his ambition, in securing for the prince the 
hand of Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre, 
formerly a priest of Astarte. The recognition of his 
dynasty by so powerful a state as Phoenicia, the richest 
in Palestine, and famous through the world, appeared 
to secure its consolidation and permanence, while the 
close relations between the two countries, thus allied, 
would doubtless bring material prosperity. 

The result, however, disappointed such expectations. 
Haughty, greedy of power and splendour, fanatically 
devoted to the religion of Tyre, and, withal, full of energy 
and swift decision, which shrank from_ no outrage on 
the rights of others, had no scruples at deeds of blood, 
and demanded blind obedience from all, Jezebel swayed 
the less resolute mind of her husband, and stamped her 
own spirit on his reign. For the worship of Jehovah 
under the symbol of the golden calves she had profound 
contempt. In its place, Ahab must set up that of Baal 
and Astarte, the gods of Tyre, with its splendid temples, 
great trains of priests, and gorgeous ritual. It was with 
her as with the mistress of the slave in Juvenal : " I wish 

141 



142 THE GKEAT DEOUGHT UNDEll AHAB. 

it, and therefore command it ; my will is reason enough." 
All Israel must do as she ordered. The altars of Jehovah 
must be thrown down, His prophets extirpated. To refuse 
obedience to the royal decree was to be held a capital 
offence. 

Yielding weakly to the imperious woman, Ahab carried 
out all she demanded. A great temple of Baal rose 
in Samaria; a second, of Astarte, gave splendour to 
Jezreel, the country residence of the court. The prophets 
of Jehovah had to flee before a fierce persecution. Such 
as were not slain were glad of the shelter of caves, 
with no better sustenance than bread and water. The 
people, cowed by the ferocious energy of the queen, 
made so little resistance, that, after a time, there were 
only some seven thousand who had not bowed the knee 
to Baal. Tyrian heathenism reigned throughout the 
Ten Tribes. Jezebel fancied she had triumphed. 

But at this juncture opposition met her. Among 
the servants of Jehovah a brave soul, Elijah, came 
forward to offer battle, in the name of his God, to 
priest and king. He seems to have belonged to a village 
of Naphtali, but to have been forced to flee to Gilead 
for his life, and lived there when the narrative opens. 
He must have been one of those who had to wander 
"in deserts and mountains," and to sleep in ''caves, 
and holes of the earth ; " for he would not, else, have 
appeared and disappeared so suddenly as we find he 
always did, nor would he have been forced- to go about 
" in sheepskins " or " goatskins " tied round him by a 
strap of hide.^ The rough shepherds of some parts 

1 2 Kings i. 8 ; Heb. xi. 37, 38. 



THE GKEAT DROUGHT UNDER AHAB. 143 

of Palestine are still often clad thus rudely. Elijah, 
however, was no rough shepherd, but a man who had 
to live as he could, under a deadly proscription. 

Jezebel was too hardened and fanatical for any hope ; 
but Ahab had good in him, if it had not been choked, 
in its fitful beginnings, by fatal weakness. He might 
be approached. Suddenly, as he drove his chariot with- 
out his queen, the gaunt figure of Elijah checked him 
in his course. Coming to his side, the stern prophet 
abruptly delivered his message to the terrified king : 
"As Jehovah, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom 
I stand [as His servant], there shall not be dew nor rain 
these years, but according to my word." Having uttered 
this fearful " burden," he was gone. 

How soon the drought set in, is not told, but it 
seems as if it had begun forthwith. Strange to say, 
Josephus quotes from Menander the statement, that 
in the reign of Ethbaal there was " a want of rain for 
a whole year, and when he made supplication [to the 
gods], there came thunder" [with its heavy showers]. 
Meanwhile, even the hills and woods of Gilead, with 
their streams, so full and strong compared with the 
water-supply west of the Jordan, were no longer safe 
for the hunted man. The mysterious " word of Jehovah " 
therefore came to him, directing that he should turn 
eastward from the spot where he had met Ahab, near 
Samaria, and hide by the brook Cherith, that is " before 
Jordan," — often the Hebrew expression for "to the east" 
of it. Hitherto this retreat has not been identified, 
various spots having been thought the right one. It 
may be that the deep gorge on the farther side of the 
Jordan, nearly east of Samaria, known near its mouth 



144 THE GREAT DEOUGHT UNDER AHAB. 

as the " Wady Fakarith," or that north of it, which in 
the Middle Ages was known as the Valley of Elijah, 
was Cherith. No one can tell. 

But there, wherever it was, Elijah lay safe, we do 
not know how long, till "the brook dried up, because 
there was no rain in the land," his food being brought 
to him, we are told, day by day, by ravens, guided to 
supply him with bread and flesh. If his hiding-place 
was in Fakarith, or near it, he had found safety not 
far from Ahab's capital ; but now he was to hide himself 
in the very land of Jezebel, amidst the heathenism she 
so dearly loved. Zarephath (" the [glass] melting huts "), 
now Sarafend, a village with ruins, about ten miles 
south of Sidon, near the coast road, was to be his shelter ; 
a widow woman having been appointed by Providence 
to sustain him. At the town gate, as he drew near it, 
this widow, who little knew the honour vouchsafed her, 
was gathering bits of wood, to bake her last remains 
of flour, that she and her son might " eat it, and die." 
To find out whether she were the person to whom he 
had been sent, Elijah forthwith begged her to give 
him some water, and, as she was going for it, prayed, 
further, that she should bring him a morsel of bread. 
Answering with a solemn oath, to attest her truth, she 
could only tell him her story. All the flour she had 
was but a handful in her flour-jar, and she had nothing, 
besides, but a "little oil in the cruse," and the sticks 
she was gathering were to let her bake the poor trifle 
of flour in hot ashes, as a bite, before her son and she 
died of hunger. But she had sworn by Jehovah, and 
this showed that she honoured the true God, whose 
name she had invoked, doubtless because she saw that 



THE GKKAT DROUGHT UNDER AHAB. 145 

the prophet was an Israelite ; for to a heathen she could 
not have dared to commit herself thus. 

It was clear that she was to be his divinely appointed 
sustainer; but he would not try her faith too much. 
While, therefore, still asking the bread for himself, he 
cheered her to compliance by assuring her, on the word 
of his God and hers, that obedience to his request 
would be rewarded by both flour and oil holding out, 
for his use as well as her own and that of her son, 
till rain was once more sent on the earth. Believing 
what he said, she went and did as he had asked, and 
found, day by day, thenceforth, that it is well with those 
who put their trust in Jehovah. 



ELIJAH AT C ARM EL. 

The terrible drought in Northern Palestine, as foretold 
by Elijah, had lasted half through the fourth year, and 
there seemed no prospect of change for the better, when 
the Divine voice roused Elijah to leave his quiet and 
unsuspected retreat in the roof-chamber of the widow's 
house at Zarephath, and once more throw himself in the 
way of Ahab, as the bearer of a special commission to 
him from God. 

Things had gone from bad to worse since the prophet 
had fled from Israel. In her furious hatred of Jehovah 
worship, Jezebel had persecuted its public ministers to 
the death ; those only escaping whom tried friends secretly 
aided, as Obadiah, the chief man in Ahab's household, 
did a hundred of the sons of the prophets, hidden by him 
in the rude shelter of hill caves, and fed on the humble 
fare of bread and water, — the best he could secure them. 
Jezebel's black-robed priests of Baal had doubtless offered 
sacrifices and made public intercessions, to bring down, 
by the favour of their god, the rain so terribly needed; 
but the sky still glowed like a brazen oven, and food for 
man and beast refused to grow from the scorched soil. 

Things had come at last to such a pass that Ahab 
himself set out, with Obadiah, to search for whatever 
springs or pools might still, in any part of the country, 
be not quite dried up, — he taking one direction, Obadiah 

146 



ELIJAH AT CARMEL. 147 

another. Suddenly, as Obadiah drove on in his chariot, 
a figure stepped out before him, which he felt he knew. 
It was the long-vanished Elijah, whom Ahab had vainly 
sought, far and near, that he might please Jezebel by 
killing him, as the chief hindrance to the full triumph 
of her Tyrian idolatry throughout Israel. Startled as he 
must have been at the apparition, he was no less awed by 
the awful dignity of the prophet's office, as supreme 
representative of Jehovah in the well-nigh apostate land. 
Falling on his face before him, in profound Oriental 
respect, he could only await his pleasure. 

Yet he shrank from carrying out the instructions given 
him by Elijah, to go to Ahab,. and tell him that he whom 
he sought to kill desired to meet him. " I dare not," said 
he, " for the king has searched for you everywhere, to kill 
you ; and now, if I tell him you are here, I may find you 
gone when he comes, and he will kill me for having 
deceived him, or for not myself having slain you." " You 
need not fear," replied the prophet ; " I swear by Jehovah 
that I will assuredly show myself to Ahab to-day." 

The king was apparently glad of an opportunity to 
meet his redoubtable antagonist. Perhaps he might get 
him to give way, and accept the religious revolution 
introduced by Jezebel ; if not, he might arrest him, and 
put him beyond doing farther harm, by killing him. Yet 
a prophet, like the dervish of our own day, is too sacred 
a personage for even a king lightly to injure, and Ahab 
was to find that he could neither bend nor touch him. 
" Is it you ? " said he haughtily, and in fierce anger, as he 
drove up, — " yon, the troubler of Israel ? " 

Elijah had claimed a higher dignity than the king's, by 
sending for him, instead of going humbly to him ; and 



148 - ELIJAH AT CAEMEL. 

now maintained his loftier bearing. "You and your 
father's house ; not I, trouble Israel/' retorted he sternly. 
"You have brought all this misery on it by forsaking 
Jehovah and setting up the Baalim in His place. Why 
not put it to a trial, whether my God or yours is 
the more worthy to be the God we worship ? Send and 
gather all Israel to Carmel, to meet me, and order the 
four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, at Samaria, and 
the four hundred prophets of Astarte that are fed at 
Jezebel's cost, to come to me there. Then let it be seen 
whether they, in their multitude, or I, singly, for Jehovah, 
have witness from heaven for our God." Ahab assenting 
to so fair a proposal, the two parted. 

The range of hills known as Carmel stretches north- 
west along the southern side of Esdraelon, ending in a 
promontory that sinks abruptly into the sea, but made 
up, through its whole length, of green rounded hills, in 
some cases eighteen hundred feet above the level of 
the Mediterranean, and seamed with countless larger or 
smaller valleys ; the fruitfulness and rich verdure of the 
region, throughout, leading to its name, which means 
" a garden." Of these, one, about thirteen miles from 
Cape Carmel, was chosen by Elijah for the great appeal. 
From its top there is the last glimpse of the Great Sea, 
and the first of the wide plain of Esdraelon. From amidst 
a belt of fine trees, a line of precipitous cliffs rises, still 
bearing, as the name of its crest, that of El Maharakah, 
" the burning," or " the sacrifice ; " an eminence visible 
over the broad sweep below, and also from the gentle 
slopes around. Here lay the stones of a ruined altar of 
Jehovah, amid an abundance of others, though the ground 
is open enough to permit of the trench which Elijah 



ELIJAH AT CAKMEL. 149 

caused to be made, being easily dug. Close beneath the 
flat plain on the top of the crest, is a copious spring, 
the molluscs in which show that it is never dry; and 
from this, a steep ravine leads to the Kishon, which, at 
this place, sweeps close to the foot of the two hundred 
feet high wall of rock. 

To this place, on the day appointed, came vast throngs 
from every part of the land, and with them, at Ahab's 
command, but perhaps sorely against their own will, the 
four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal ; those of Astarte 
having, apparently, been prevented from coming, by 
Jezebel. On one side stood the king and people, with 
the prophets of Baal in their robes and head-dresses ; on 
the other, with only a" single attendant, was the solitary 
prophet of Jehovah, — his rough sheepskin mantle over 
a simple linen tunic, both held in place by a strap of 
hide, and his long hair hanging down his shoulders, or 
blown about by the mountain breezes. Addressing the 
thousands around, Elijah demanded that their choice of 
Baal or Jehovah, as their God, should depend on the 
issue of that day's trial of their respective claims. 

The Baal prophets were to have the first place. Let 
them build an altar, and lay a bullock for sacrifice on the 
wood needed to consume it, but they must put no fire 
under it; in due time, Elijah would submit to the same 
conditions. All was done as proposed, and the Baal 
prophets began their cries to their god to hear them, and 
send fire from the sky ; for was he not the sun-god ? 
But no answer came, though they kept up their wild 
prayers from morning till noon. In vain they continued 
their sacred circling round the altar, and repeated their 
cries to Baal with endless iteration, and cut themselves 



150 ELIJAH AT CARMEL. 

with knives and lances, as was usual in the frenzy to 
which, like some of the dervishes now, they raised them- 
selves, in their fanatical excitement. N'o voice or fire 
came from the heavens. " Cry aloud ! " shouted Elijah, 
in mockery. " He is a god, you say ; he must be musing, 
or gone aside, or on a journey, or sleeping." Still there 
was no answer, though they kept up their dances and 
cries till the time of the evening sacrifice approached. 

Then, at last, Elijah called the people near, and ordered 
them to build up the altar of Jehovah that had been 
thrown down, using twelve stones to form it, in remem- 
brance of the twelve tribes, now unhappily divided, but 
once united in a common worship of the God whom 
Jezebel insulted. The bullock was duly laid on the 
wood, but, to heighten the impression of the miracle he 
expected, a trench was dug, at his request, round the 
altar, and twelve barrels of water from the spring at 
hand, poured over the sacrifice, till the trench itself was 
filled with what ran off. • Then, at the hour of the evening 
sacrifice, the din of Baal's priests having ceased, his voice 
was heard in earnest supplication to the God of his fathers 
to vindicate His own glory before assembled Israel. 

Presently a flame from the cloudless sky shot down on 
the altar, so intense that, in spite of the water, the burnt- 
offering and the wood were consumed forthwith, and the 
very stones and dust calcined, while the water itself was 
licked up. At such a sight, the crowd, as they well 
might, fell on their faces, to worship Him whom such 
a triumph showed, irresistibly, to be the God they should 
follow, and the cry rose, " Jehovah, He is God 1" Elijah's 
brethren had been remorselessly hunted to death by the 
priests of Baal, now so utterly discredited. These priests 



ELIJAH AT CARMEL. 151 

would afc last atone for their crimes against the prophets 
of the Lord. " Seize them, one and all," shouted Elijah, 
"and take them down to the edge of the Kishon," and 
thither, with the excited crowd and the whole throng of 
priests, Elijah himself hurried. " Slay them, every man," 
shouted the prophet once more ; and the four hundred 
and fifty corpses were hurled contemptuously into the 
now stony bed of the stream, to lie unburied, till the 
flood, soon to come, would sweep them out, dishonoured, 
to the ocean. 



ELIJAH AFTER CARMEL. 

The descent from El Maharakah — " the place of burning " 
— is by a long, steep, winding path, over rocks and through 
thickets, till you reach the great plain, 1300 or 1400 feet 
below the isolated peak, which rises, far above, from a 
slope thick with trees, into a wall of cliff some forty feet 
high. The level space, underneath, rough with loose 
stones and strong growths of all kinds ; the ruins of a 
great cistern, now dry ; and, below this, the famous well, cut 
in the rock, and never without water, are soon far behind ; 
and you reach a shapeless knoll, still called the Priest's 
Hill, between the height you have left and Esdraelon. 

There, perhaps, the priests were slain, while Ahab was 
as yet spell-bound by the miracle he had witnessed. But 
after a sacrifice there was always a feast, at which, it was 
believed, the Being to whom the sacrifice had been offered 
was present invisibly; as if, by such communion with 
the offerers, to express his having forgiven them and re- 
ceived them again into favour. Such a feast was now 
hastily spread, beside the altar that had seen the reve- 
lation of Jehovah. The profession of faith in Him as 
their God, instead of Baal, and the death of the idol 
priests, had been accepted as signs of national penitence, 
and the curse of drought had been revoked. Already 
the prophet heard the sound of copious rain, though it 
was still unnoticed by others. 

152 



ELIJAH AFTER CARMEL. 153 

Three hundred feet l)eneath the actual summit of the 
hill, — the south-eastern termination of the Carmel range, 
— the sea shows itself in the distance, from a shoulder of 
the mountain, which is about ten minutes' distance from 
the supposed place of sacrifice. Towards this height 
Elijah retired to pray, casting himself on the earth, his 
face between his knees, while he sent his attendant seven 
times in succession, to the point above, from which the 
heaving waters of the Mediterranean could be seen. The 
sky was still cloudless when the messenger returned from 
his sixth survey, but, after the seventh, he reported that 
he saw a small cloud rising from the ocean, — the well- 
known sign, in the Levant, of a coming storm. A wild 
hurricane was, in fact, rushing towards Carmel. 'Not a 
moment was to be lost, for the great plain below would 
speedily be impassable for the king's chariot, and the dry 
bed of Kishon would be filled with a roaring flood, poured 
into it from the hills, and from endless hollows seamino- 
Esdraelon. 

Leaping up quickly behind the swift horses, the king 
drove off in hot haste to Jezreel, the country residence 
of the court, twenty miles to the south-east, where, on 
the green slopes of Gilboa, or on the plain before them, 
rose a palace, amidst stately gardens, in which, perhaps, 
was Jezebel's temple of Astarte. Every one who has 
been in an Eastern city has seen the foot-runners, who, 
in gay dress, staff in hand, precede the vehicles of the 
great, to clear the way and announce the importance of 
him who follows. As it is now, so it was in the remotest 
times ; and Elijah himself, to show his loyalty, when the 
king had proved himself, for the time, worthy of it, by 
his reverence for Jehovah, paid him this high respect, 



154 ELIJAH AFTER CARMEL. 

Tightening the leather belt round him, and binding up 
his flowing dress with it, he ran, Arab-like, before the 
careering horses, all the way to Jezreel, through the 
ever-increasing storm. But at the gate of the town he 
vanished into the darkness ; for, though fearless of open 
violence, he shrank from the secret imperious malignity 
of Jezf bel. 

Ahab had bent, as usual, before a stronger will in sub- 
mitting to Elijah ; but his wife was not so easily daunted. 
"The gods do so to me, and more also," she cried, "if I 
make not thy life, prophet, as the life of one of the 
prophets of Baal w^hom thou hast slain, by to-morrow 
about this time ! " Meanwhile, Elijah had fled to the 
south, only resting when he had reached Beersheba, on 
the edge of the desert, eighty miles off, as the crow flies. 
His attendant had followed him thus far, but here he was 
left behind. The excitement of the day, at Carmel, had 
sustained him for a time, but now a reaction followed the 
nervous tension. The death of Baal's prophets seemed 
far less vital than at first. Jezebel still lived, and he, 
the one representative of Jehovah, was a fugitive. 

Profound dejection had followed its opposite. But the 
God he served so faithfully was nigh. Elijah had lain 
down in the shadow of a retem bush — the broom — found 
in the scorched landscapes of the desert, here and there, 
where nothing else grows, and grateful to the weary 
traveller for even the little shade it offers. Sleep soon 
overtook him ; but he heard a voice bidding him rise and 
eat. Waking, he found a cake of bread and a cruse of 
water; still the only requirements of a Bedouin. Ee- 
freshed by these, he determined to keep on till he reached 
the sacred mount, Horeb, a hundred and seventy miles 



ELIJAH AFTER CAIIMEL. 15.1 

from Beersheba in a direct line. But he went over the 
distance so slowly that it was forty days before he reached 
it, and for that long time, we are told, he ate nothing. 

A cave is shown in Sinai as that in which Elijah sought 
shelter. As he lay there, asleep in the night, another 
vision was granted him, and the question seemed to be 
asked him : " What doest thou here, Elijah, away from 
thy work ? " He pleaded that he believed he was the 
last prophet in Israel, and that even his life was in peril. 
The voice, however, told him to come out of the cave, 
and stand on the mount. There, God revealed Himself 
as He never did to mortal, before or since. At first, a 
mighty hurricane burst through the awful gorges of the 
mountain, rending off rocks as it swept past ; then followed 
an earthquake, shaking the huge granite peaks; and, 
after that, the peals of an awful thunderstorm rever- 
berated through the naked defiles, accompanied by blind- 
ing lightning. But Jehovah was in none of these. At 
last, in the silence peculiar to lonely mountain regions, 
and especially to Sinai, where the awful hush is broken 
by no sound of falling water, or of man, or beast, or bird, 
there stole over the prophet the music of a "still small 
voice." The supreme moment had arrived. "What 
doest thou here, Elijah ? " was asked once more, and the 
same answer returned. Three commands were given, to 
carry out which he must return, and trust to that power 
which had preserved him at Cherith and Zarephath. 
ISIor need he be so crushed in soul. He was not, as he 
had fancied, alone; there were yet, unknown to man, 
but known to Jehovah, seven thousand in Israel who had 
not bowed the knee to Baal. 

A lesson of abiding and transcendent meaning had been 



156 ELIJAH AFTER CARMEL. 

given the prophet. He had trusted to sternness and 
force, but they were not God's way. He would yet see 
that merely outward measures could not restore religion 
in Israel. The still small voice of persuasion and reason 
was far mightier, and alone had the favour of the 
Almighty. His kingdom must be spread, not by the 
hurricane, or the earthquake, or the thunderings and 
lightnings of human passion, but by the gentler agency 
of conviction, roused in the heart by love, and leading to 
penitence and true reformation. 



JEZEBEL. 

Leaving the Mount of God, Elijah turned once more to 
the north, in obedience to the Divine command. Passing 
into the Ghor, or sunken channel of the Jordan, the edges 
of which offer a wider or narrower border of arable land, 
he reached Abel-meholah, — " the Meadow of the Dance," 
— a broader part of the river-bed, ten miles, as we are 
told, below Beth-shean, — the hollow secrecy of his route 
having protected him from the emissaries of Jezebel. 
Here lived a sha'phat, or judge, a man of local weight and 
position, whose son, Elisha, in keeping with the simplicity 
of those ages, was at this very time busy with the plough, 
on the wide stretch cultivated by his father, in that sultry 
but fertile spot. The substantial comfort of the family 
was shown by twelve yoke of oxen being engaged with as 
many ploughs, on the tilth, at the same moment. The 
son of this well-to-do household had been selected to be 
Elijah's companion and helper, with a view to his future 
succession to the full dignity of a prophet ; and at the 
invitation of the champion of Jehovah, famous now, more 
than ever, by the incident on Carmel, he forthwith became 
his attendant, after a hasty farewell to his home. 

Elijah vanishes at this point, for some time, from our 
sight ; the dates on the margin of our Bibles making it 
no less than six years. Meanwhile, Ahab had repelled 
two attacks of Benhadad, the King of Syria, and thus 

157 



158 JEZEBEL. 

materially strengthened his position. But he was not 
happy. He had gained a high military reputation; his 
capital at Samaria, on its isolated hill amidst a green 
plain, offered one of the sweetest landscapes in Palestine, 
and had been shown to be well nigh proof against attack. 
At Jezreel he had a summer residence, on the slopes of 
the hills of Gilboa, with the vast undulating expanse of 
Esdraelon stretching far away from before it in every 
variety of rural charm, while the rounded hills of Samaria 
and the wooded heights of the Carmel range bounded the 
charming view on one side, and, on the other, the hills of 
Galilee, rising higher and higher to the horizon, looked 
down on the plain. He had a palace with its fountains 
gardens, and manifold delights ; but outside the walls of 
his luxurious paradise lay a petty vineyard that was not 
his ! How admirably it would join in with his own 
garden ! He would himself speak to its owner, !N'aboth, 
a yeoman of Jezreel, who had inherited the spot from his 
fathers, and lived upon it. He would give him either a 
better vineyard, or his own price for it ; and he could 
hardly refuse the king. But he had not reckoned on 
Naboth's strong affection for a patch of earth which his 
ancestors had owned for so many generations. What 
could be done for the king he would be pleased to do, but 
he must decline parting with his family inheritance. 

Selfishness grows monstrous by indulgence, and in an 
Oriental despot everything tends to increase it. As his 
will is law, he gets to think contradiction in any case a 
crime. The highest official calls himself his slave. His 
every whim or caprice must be instantly gratified, at any 
expense to others, if things are to run smoothly. Ahab 
turned back to the palace in the worst of moods, fretful 



JEZEBEL. 159 

and furious. Like a spoiled child, he could neither eat 
nor speak to any one, but threw himself on his bed, and 
turned his face to the wall, to indulge his sulky ill-humour 
undisturbed. Had he been left alone, his bad temper 
might have worked itself ou^ after a time ; but, unfortu- 
nately, his evil genius, the queen, was soon at his side. 
Like a woman, she was troubled that he did not eat, and 
that he looked sad. What was the matter ? Then came 
the whole wretched story. " What ! " cried Jezebel. *' Are 
you King of Israel, or is JSTaboth ? I shall show you. 
Get up ; eat, and be yourself again. I will give you 
Naboth's vineyard." Napoleon before Leipsic, in answer 
to a remark about the slaughter that w^ould follow con- 
tinued resistance, asked, "And what are the lives of a 
million of men, to carry out the will of a man like me ?" 
Jezebel felt like the Corsican.. What was the life of a 
wretched vineyard owner, to the pleasure of a king ! 

She now dictated to the king's scribe, a letter to the 
authorities of Jezreel, commanding them to proclaim a 
fast, as if some terrible national wickedness had been com- 
mitted, for wliicli the whole community should humble 
themselves before God. Naboth was to be set at the 
head of the people in this public mourning, as if in honour 
of his exceptional worth, and of the estimation in which 
he was held ; but, while the fast was at its height, and 
the multitude, with Naboth at their head, w^ere roused to 
wild excitement at the sight of the black robes, the earth 
and ashes strewn on all heads, the loud weeping, the 
crowds lying all their length on the earth, the dark, un- 
washed faces and unanointed heads, the bare feet, the 
rent garments, and, in many cases, the tearing of the 
hair, — two worthless false accusers, of whom there are 



] 60 JEZEBEL. 

only too many in the East, were to be let loose on him, 
with accusations of his being, after all, though now head- 
ing the fast, the cause of all this alarm and of the danger 
they were seeking to avert ; for, said they, " Thou didst 
curse God and the king, an(3^ for this blasphemy we must 
all suffer, if the wrath of heaven and of Ahab be not 
turned aside by thy deserved death, as the law demands." 
In their frenzy, it was of no use to reason with the crowd, 
who knew nothing of the craven treachery and wicked- 
ness of their elders and chief men. 

That Xaboth should have brought them into such peril, 
and then have been hypocrite enough to lead the service 
of humiliation and penitence, as if he had nothing on his 
conscience, infuriated them ; nor could their mad fury be 
appeased till they had dragged him out of the little town, 
as he was, in his black robe, and stoned him to death, — 
the ordained fate of a blasphemer. They would learn the 
truth when it was too late. Jezebel had achieved her 
purpose. " The vineyard is yours, now, Ahab," said she. 
" Naboth is dead for having, as the crowd believed, cursed 
God and you, and his ground falls to the crown."" The 
poor king may have been innocent in the matter until 
now; but if so, the gratification of his self-will proved 
too much for his principle. Without a word of horror, or 
any hesitation in profiting by the foul crime of Jezebel, 
he forthwith set out to take formal possession of the dead 
man's property. 

But there was One who had seen all, and was mightier 
than any earthly power. Ahab appears to have been in 
Samaria when the murder took place, and to have ridden 
over the low rounded hills to Jezreel, after hearing the 
queen's communication. He had just reached the coveted 



JEZEBEL. 161 

vineyard, when, to his horror, he saw Elijah before him. 
Gasping out the cry, " Hast thou found me, mine 
enemy ? " he could say no more, but had to listen to the 
prophet's denunciation of his crime, and prediction of 
its punishment. His dynasty would be extirpated; the 
masterless town dogs would lick up his blood on the very 
spot where they had lapped that of Naboth ; and, as to 
Jezebel, these dogs would devour her, as she lay helpless 
and crushed outside the town wall. Selfishness, which, 
in its measure, is heartlessness, carries its own punish- 
ment in the moral death it induces ; but it is also doomed, 
in many cases, to pay the penalty of the avenging anger 
of Providence, before the eyes of man. 



ELIJAH'S TRANSLATION, 

The long service of Elijah was at last drawing to a 
close ; for even when most lengthened, our days fly 
swifter than a post, and the night falls soon, — when our 
work is done. He knew he must erelong die, as all 
old men feel, but his love for Him whom he had so 
faithfully served was strong to the end. Before he left 
the world, he would fain, once more, visit the "schools 
of the prophets," which had been the seminaries of the 
Church ever since they were first instituted by Samuel, 
the great reformer of the religious life of his people. To 
secure the continuance of sound teaching, and the fervour 
of godly ministrations, in the land, through future genera- 
tions, that far-seeing and wise leader had gathered round 
himself, at various points to which he yearly came in his 
circuits from Eamah, as the supreme judge in the nation, 
bodies of disciples, — some married men, others in their 
opening manhood, — who lived in communities for the 
better promotion of their special aims. 

Their numbers must have been large, for we find 
Obadiah hiding a hundred during Jezebel's persecution, 
while Ahab could assemble four hundred at a time, just 
before his death, and a hundred are mentioned in con- 
nection with each of the communities at Jericho and 
Gilgal.^ They ate in common, went abroad in companies,^ 

1 1 Kings xxii. 6 ; xviii. 4, &c. 

2 2 Kings iv. 40 ; 1 Sam. x. 5-10 ; xix. 20. 

162 



Elijah's translation. 163 

cultiA^ated sacred music, and, in all probability, gave 
themselves to the multiplication and guardianship of 
the inspired records, as they were written. We know 
of such "schools" only at places associated with the 
history of Samuel : at Eamah, his own home, in the 
green hills of Ephraim; at Bethel and Gilgal, both, also, 
in Ephraim; and at Gibeah and Jericho, in the tribe of 
Benjamin, — the whole being thus in the heart of the 
country. That at Eamah is called Naioth, which means 
" dwelling-places," thus pointing to a separate settlement 
of these prophetic neophytes. Their communities were 
under the care of older and well-known prophets, on 
whom some of the members waited, as personal atten- 
dants, and from whom they received fatherly care, as we 
see in Elisha's feeding a hundred at one time, and in his 
paying the debts of another, who had died without the 
means of paying them himself.^ They supported them- 
selves apparently, in at least some cases, by tilling the 
ground or by feeding cattle, but they had doubtless other 
simple industries as well, to secure the modest living 
they sought.^ 

Now that the time drew nigh when Elijah was to 
leave the world, his fatherly tenderness to these asso- 
ciations, on which the future of religion in the land 
depended, impelled him to pay them a farewell visit. It 
does not appear, however, that they knew he was so soon 
to pass away, else they would not have urged Ehsha so 
persistently to send into the hills and valleys, to see if 
th^y could find him, after he had been taken up to be 
with God. When he set out on this last journey, he 

^ 2 Kings ii. 3, 16 ; iii. 11 ; iv. 1, 42-44 ; vi. 1-3 ; ix. 1. 

- 2 Kings iv. oO. 



164 Elijah's teanslation. 

was at the home of the community in Gilgal, about 
five miles south-west of Shiloh, not the Gilgal in the 
Jordan valley, Elisha accompanying him as his constant 
attendant, since he was summoned at Abel-meholah to 
leave all and follow him. It seems as if, when we come 
near dying, the spirit craves to be alone, since, after 
all, we must really be so, even if friends surround us, 
for the soul has to pass by itself through the dark 
valley ; and in this frame the aged prophet begged 
Elisha to stay behind, and let him go by himself to 
Bethe], whither an impulse from above directed him. 
But true love cannot keep away from the object of its 
affection. "As Jehovah liveth," replied Elisha, "and 
as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." So they 
" went down " to Bethel ; an expression that reminds 
us of the country sinking, more or less, as one passes 
from north to south, or, from the central hills, to the 
east or west. 

Somewhere on the grey, rounded heights at Bethel, 
now so bare and desolate, but, then, more or less wooded, 
stood the humble shelters of a community of j)rophets, 
of whom the great champion of Jehovah -worship was 
the honoured father and head. Seeing him and his 
minister approaching, they naturally hurried out to greet 
them. Elisha knew that Elijah was very soon to leave 
them, though, as yet, he did not know in what way he 
was to do so. " Knowest thou," said they, " that Jehovah 
will very soon take away thy master from being any 
longer thy head ? " " Yes," replied Elisha, " I know it ; 
for who could question the signs of approaching departure 
so ^'isible to all ? But do not speak of it. I cannot bear 
that you should bring such a thought into my mind." 



Elijah's tkanslation. 165 

How long Elijah and Elisha stayed at Bethel, is not told ; 
but the time thus given must have been for ever sacred 
to those who then heard the farewell counsels of one so 
honoured of God. 

From Bethel, Elijah felt himself urged on to Jericho ; 
and thither, notwithstanding the gentle dissuasions of 
his master, Elisha still attended him, perhaps unwilling 
to leave the now feeble old man to attempt the rough 
journey alone. The sons of the prophets at this second 
halting-place had, like those at Bethel, a more or less 
clear premonition that their great leader w^as presently 
to leave them ; but Elisha gave them the same answer as 
before, to their questions on a subject so dear to them all. 
At last the prophet's charge had been given, and the time 
had come for him to go forth once more. The disciples 
would fain have gone with him, but he suffered no one to 
follow except Elisha. Fifty of them, however, eager to 
get a last look of one they loved so well, took their station 
on the rounded top of one of the hills overlooking the 
Jordan, and watched him from afar, as he receded from 
their view. He and Elisha had now reached the river, 
flowing on in its sunken bed. Standing on the bank for 
a little while, to make ready for passing over, Elijah took 
his sheepskin cloak, and, having rolled it up, as if into a 
staff like that of Moses, struck the waters, which presently 
parted, so that " they two went over on dry ground." 

Now, at last, Elijah felt that the final moment had 
come. " What can I do for thee," asked he, " before I be 
taken from thee ? " He fancied, one may suppose, that 
he was to die like other men ; but God had special honour 
in reserve for so true a servant. " I pray thee," murmured 
Elisha, " let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me " — 



166 Elijah's translation. 

that is, the portion of the first-born. " You ask a hard 
thing," replied Elijah ; " nevertheless, if thou see me when 
I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee ; but if not, 
it shall not be so." If he were caught away suddenly by 
God, or laid by Him, like Moses, in a grave unknown to 
man, he w^ould not have his admirable wish; but if the 
parting was open, it would be the sign that he was 
adopted from above, in the fullest sense, as Elijah's 
successor. 

What followed is best told in the words of Scripture : 
" It came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, 
behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, 
which parted them both asunder ; and Elijah went up 
by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he 
cried, My father, my father, art thou going ? thou who 
art the defence and glory of thy race and more than the 
chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof ! " After that 
he saw him no more, and, in his grief, rent his clothes, as 
the Hebrews did when they mourned the departed. But 
the mantle of Elijah had fallen from him as he ascended, 
and this his friend eagerly took up, as a sign that his 
prayer to his master for a double portion of his spirit had 
indeed been heard. 



ELISHA. 

The installation of Elisha as the successor of Elijah was 
natural, after so long and faithful an attendance on the 
great prophet, as his intimate companion and disciple. 
It needed, however, some formal confirmation by God, 
before either the new prophet himself, or the communi- 
ties of neophytes over the land, could feel at ease in 
regard to a matter so important. But this was speedily 
vouchsafed. The mantle that fell from his master as he 
was carried away, proved the true symbol of inauguration 
to the high office ; for, on Elisha's return to the banks of 
the Jordan, we are told, it needed only the smiting of the 
waters with it, to cause them to part as they had parted 
before, when similarly smitten with it by Elijah himself. 
The sons of the prophets living in the settlement near 
Jericho had, apparently, witnessed this second miracle, 
and, forthwith, Recognised that " the spirit of Elijah " 
rested on Elisha. • That they should reverently show 
their sense of this was natural. Leaving the height on 
which they were gathered, therefore, they hastened 
towards him, and "bowed themselves to the ground" 
before him, in token of his being received as their divinely 
appointed head. In the East, such prostration is usual 
in the presence of great men, and expressed no more, in 
this case, than loyal homage and lowly respect, implying 

167 



168 ELISHA. 

that they henceforth accepted his will and authority as 
their law. 

That he should have come back alone, however, after 
such a tempest of wind, thunder, dark clouds, and blind- 
ing lightning as had made them greatly anxious for both, 
was a great trouble. What had become of Elijah ? ISTo 
hint of his having been taken up triumphantly to heaven 
fell from the lips of his loving successor. It seemed, 
indeed, as if he had simply vanished in a whirlwind, and 
Elisha said nothing, so far as we can judge, to contradict 
this belief. JSTor can we wonder at their distress, for the 
inspired writer himself tells us that he " went up by a 
whirlwind into heaven ; " that is, that he vanished into 
the sky in a whirlwind gust. The " chariot of fire, and 
horses of fire," mentioned just before, would, therefore, 
seem to be Oriental imagery, rather than a statement 
intended to be taken literally, — just as in one of the 
Psalms ^ we read that God makes " the clouds His 
chariots," and as, in Isaiah, he tells us that Jehovah 
" rideth upon a swift cloud." ^ In the figurative style 
of the East, the cloud, filled with lightning-fires, was a 
chariot and flaming steeds. Elijah himself, indeed, was, 
to his attendant, " the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen 
thereof," — that is, the strong defence of Israel against 
the invading idolatry of the age, — and 'was bidden a sad 
farewell by him with this tender homage. It seems as 
if the words had been a common form of honour paid 
to any one who was greatly valued by the nation ; for 
King Joash calls Elisha himself, in his old age, when 
about to die, "the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen 
thereof," ^ — just as Elisha had used the words of Elijah. 

1 Ps. civ. 3. 2 Isa. xix. 1. 3 2 Kings xiii. 14. 



ELISHA. 169 

Fifty " strong men," able to wander afar over the hills 
and down the stony gorges, searched in vain, during 
three days, for any traces of the vanished prophet; 
Elisha having unwillingly yielded to continued impor- 
tunity in permitting them to do so. Yet he himself was 
so little acquainted with what had really happened to 
Elijah, that he waited in Jericlio till they came back ; if, 
by any chance, any traces of him might have been dis~ 
covered. All that any one could say came, in the end, 
only to the recognition of the fact that " he was not ; for 
God took him." 

While at Jericho, which, in spite of the curse of Joshua, 
had been rebuilt, in these days, by a man of Bethel, on 
whose family, however, the doom, pronounced so long 
before, had fallen heavily,^ Elisha had an opportunity of 
showing the contrast between his character and that of 
his great master. Elijah had been marked by his glowing 
zeal, which burst out in fierce judgments on the enemies 
of Jehovah, as when he slew the four hundred prophets 
of Baal, or, at a later time, froze the soul of Ahab by the 
announcement that the dogs would lick up his blood and 
devour his queen, and that his dynasty should be extir- 
pated, for the crimes of which the murder of ]^aboth was 
the culmination. Elisha was, on the other hand, of a 
gentle and peaceful nature, coming, after the stormy 
Elijah, as the still small voice had, at Horeb, followed 
the lightning and thunder, and rending of the rocks. 
Elijah was a man of the wilderness, or, at least, of solitary 
and secluded life, appearing for a moment, only to vanish 
into unknown retreats ; but Elisha was a townsman of 
Samaria, living, for his whole life, among his brethren. 

1 1 Kinjys xvi. 34. 



170 ELISHA. 

Moreover, whereas Elijah was the ideal of stern Puri- 
tanism, to which the least concession in religious matters 
seemed an affront to Jehovah, Elisha showed a gentle 
toleration and liberality by allowing Naaman, though 
vowed to the service of Jehovah, to bow in the temple of 
the idol Eimmon, when required to attend his royal 
master to public ceremonials. 'Nov is the contrast less 
impressive in other lights ; for, whereas the ' fiery vehe- 
mence of Elijah, like the rush of a torrent, though mighty 
in its wild, resistless force, for a time, soon spent that 
force, and became a remembrance of the past, the quiet 
and gentle influence of Elisha endeared him to all ranks, 
throughout his life. " Elias the prophet," says the son 
of Sirach, " stood up as fire, and his word burned like a 
lamp. He brought a sore famine upon them, and by his 
zeal he diminished their numbers. By the word of the 
Lord he shut up the heaven, and three times brought 
down fire." Eeared in his life, there was no public sorrow 
at his death, and he had to grieve, in his old age, that 
his work had, even so soon, proved so much a failure as 
to have left him almost alone in the land, to witness for 
Jehovah. But the king himself lamented over Elisha. 
The lesson of the two lives is to impress on us the far 
greater power of gentleness than of its opposite, though, 
of course, sternness is needed, at times, to stem the 
advance of evil. 

The great spring — 'Ain-es-Sultan — which still flows, 
full and clear, through the site of ancient Jericho, had 
an evil name, in Elisha's day, as unwholesome, and 
especially, Josephus tells us, as inducing unfruitfulness 
in the flocks and herds, or even in the human beings who 
drank from it. The elders of the town, which was still 



ELISHA. 171 

in its first years, after being rebuilt, were naturally 
troubled by this ; and, finding Elisha amongst them, came 
to him, begging that he might correct whatever was amiss 
in their beautiful stream. It is easy to imagine that, in 
its passing over some part of its course, it might have 
contracted qualities hurtful to man and beast ; but the 
removal of these by the simple means employed by Elisha 
was, beyond question, miraculous. Asking for a new 
dish, — never in any way desecrated by an unworthy use, 
and thus fit to employ in a religious service, — he filled it 
with salt, the emblem of soundness and freedom from 
taint, and cast the salt into the water, at its source in 
the hills, proclaiming, as he did so : " Thus saith the Lord, 
I have healed these waters ; there shall not be from 
thence any more death or miscarrying." " So," it is 
added, " the waters were healed unto this day." 



THE RAISED SON. 

Ahab and Jezebel had long passed away, and, with them, 
the persecution of Jehovah-worshippers, and the attempt 
to set up Tyrian idolatry in the place of the ancient faith. 
The golden calves were still worshipped in Dan and 
Bethel ; but there was no need any longer, as in the days 
of Elijah, for prophets or confessors to hide in caves, or flee 
to the desert, to escape death. Elisha was living peace- 
ably in Samaria, as an honoured citizen, in favour with 
the king, — probably Joram, — and was on the most friendly 
terms with the court. But though Samaria was his head- 
quarters, the prophet did not confine his ministrations to 
it ; his position as the " father " of the various " schools 
of the prophets," and the demand, at different points, 
for his public services and instructions, leading him to 
travel hither and thither, apparently at stated intervals. 
Carmel, especially, was favoured with his frequent visits, 
as if some holy place among its hills, perhaps that on 
which stood the altar made famous by Elijah's sacrifice, 
were a gathering- point, to which, on the new moons and 
Sabbaths, the faithful in these parts assembled to worship 
God, with Elisha as their presiding minister and teacher. 
The road thither from Samaria runs north from that 
pleasant spot, along the green hollows of fruitful hills, 
or over grassy uplands, till it passes down, through a 
rocky slope, to the edge of the great plain of Esdraelon, 

172 



THE RAISED SON. 173 

a little to the west of the palm-crowned village of 
Ell Gannim, — " the fountain of gardens," — now Jenin. 
Straight north from this, the track runs to Jezreel, across 
part of the plain, which is here narrowed into a green 
bay, by the " mountains of Gilboa." On the last western 
slopes of these hills lay the town famous in the story of 
Jezebel ; and a little beyond it, reached by the same road, 
lay the village of Shunem, now Solam, — a poor hamlet in 
these later times, two hundred feet above the plain, of 
rough flat-roofed stone huts, with some olives and figs 
among them. 

Why Elisha should have been in the habit of passing 
through this spot, on his journeys, is not told; but his 
frequent presence had been noticed by the wife of one 
of the chief people in the little community, — a woman 
at once of kindly nature and deep religious principle. 
Shunem was a fair day's journey from Samaria, by the 
standard of Eastern travelling, and the prophet must 
have been wearied and faint when he reached it, after so 
long a ride on the slow-travelling ass. " Would he not 
honour her by accepting refreshment ? " So, as often as 
he passed, he stopped at her house, and enjoyed her simple 
hospitality. She soon felt, however, that this was not 
enough. Each visit more and more showed her, that he 
was a " holy man of God," — that is, a truly godly man, — - 
and she wisely determined to have as much of the bless- 
ing of his presence in her house as she could. " Let us 
build," said she to her husband, " for this excellent man 
and true prophet, a little room on the flat roof, as is usual 
in so many houses, and let us furnish it modestly with a 
bed, a table, a seat, and a lamp-stand, that he may stay 
for the night with us, before going farther." It was soon 



174 THE RAISED SON. 

done, and from that time Elisha was always her guest on 
his coming through Shunem. 

But, like all worthy natures, the prophet longed to show 
his gratitude for such kindness. Gehazi, his attendant, 
must ask if his master could in any way repay her, by a 
friendly exchange of service, for all her goodness. That 
he should ask, would spare both prophet and hostess em- 
barrassment. Would she like him to speak foi' her to the 
king, or to the head of the " host," the dignitary next the 
throne ? She might be pleased to be put into pleasant 
social relations with high society. But the worthy woman 
had no such ambition. She preferred to live quietly among 
her own people. She had nothing to ask from the great 
folks, but was very happy, as she was, in her comfort- 
able, peaceful home. " Is there nothing, then, I can do 
for her ? " asked the prophet, on hearing Gehazi's report. 
" She has no son," answered the shrewd attendant. It 
was reckoned a disgrace to be without children; and, 
indeed, what affectionate wife does not yearn to have a 
little one to love ? " Call her," said Elisha ; and forth- 
with she came, and modestly stood at the door of his 
chamber. " Next year," said he, " you shall embrace a 
son." It seemed too good news to be true, but it was so, 
notwithstanding. In less than a year after, she had a 
darling to clasp to her bosom. 

To have is not, however, to hold. Blessings sometimes 
come, like passing sun-bursts, only to make gloom the 
deeper by the clouds gathering again after the bright 
glimpse. Years passed on, and the child had grown into 
a rising boy, able to go out, alone, to the fields, and full 
of life. One day, in the hot reaping time, he had strayed 
off to join his father, who was out among the men, busy 



THE RAISED SON. 175 

with their sickles among the yellow grain. Playing about 
in the midst of them, the fierce sun was too much for him. 
Going up to his father, he could only say, " father, my 
head, my head ! " and sank helpless. " Carry him to his 
mother," said the agonised father to one of the reapers ; 
and on his mother's knee the poor boy lay, dying, — for by 
noon he was gone. What could she do ? Broken hearted, 
and yet not without hope, she carried the poor little corpse 
to the prophet's chamber on the roof, and laid it on his 
bed, then shut the door, and went out to do what could 
be done. Might not he whose promise had given her the 
darling give him back to her ? A holy man of God like 
Elisha had she knew not what power in Heaven. She 
would go at once to Carmel, six hours' ride off, at the 
usual rate, and tell her saintly friend the great trouble 
that had befallen her. A man attending, to drive her ass, 
which she kept at its fastest, Shunem was soon far behind, 
as she pressed on, with no thought of weariness, over the 
undulating plain. 

'At last, when she was still a long way off, Elisha, from 
his height, saw the ass approaching, and recognised her 
upon it. Always courteous, he at once sent Gehazi to ask 
if all were well ; for her coming when it was neither new 
moon nor Sabbath, seemed to show that something was 
wrong. But she had no more to say to the attendant than 
the word used in greeting, "Peace," equal to our "Good day," 
and still pressed on. Eiding up the hill to Elisha's simple 
dwelling-place, she sank at his feet and clasped them, too 
much overcome, for the moment, to speak. Gehazi w^ould 
have " thrust her away," as taking too much liberty with 
the prophet ; but the good man saw that she was in bitter- 
ness, and, while excusing himself for not having come to 



176 THE RAISED SON. 

Slimiem, and. thus saving her the journey to Carmel, from 
" the Lord having hid her sorrow from him," she was 
invited to tell him what it was. Then came the whole 
story. " Gird up your long tunic round your loins," said 
he instantly to Gehazi, "that you may run the faster, 
and take my prophet's staff in your hand, and waste no 
moment in stopping to embrace and salute any one by the 
way. Hurry on to this woman's at Shunem, and lay my 
staff on the face of the child." Perhaps he thought that, 
as the mantle of Elijah had been more than a symbol 
of office to himself, equally wonderful results would be 
wrought by his own staff. But the mother had a mother's 
heart. The servant was only a servant. Elisha himself 
must go ; for was it not a question of restoring to her all 
that was dearest in the world, in her estimation ? The 
good man, easily moved by a woman's tears, was in no 
mood to refuse her entreaties ; so they presently set out 
for her home, at as fast a rate as they could. But it must 
have been slow at the best ; for the Shunammite's ass would 
be very tired, and the prophet was not young. Mean- 
while Gehazi had done his best, with no result. The child 
neither spoke nor opened his eyes, but lay dead. 

Hours passed before Elisha and the sorely wearied 
mother arrived, — she after well-nigh twelve hours riding. 
Yet, if her child were won back to her, what mattered 
her passing exhaustion ? Elisha, passing up to his roof- 
chamber, found the child lying dead on his bed. Shut- 
ting the door, he fell down by the side of the couch, with 
its pale burden, and prayed to Jehovah to give back life 
to the boy. How earnestly he did so, we may imagine. 
No doubt he wrestled for him with strong crying and tears. 
Then, stretching himself out over the body, mouth to 



THE EAISED SON. 177 

mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, he remained, we know 
not how long, in fervent prayer, l^or was it in vain. 
Another proof was to be given that " the supplication of a 
righteous man availeth much in its working." ^ The flesh 
of the child began to wax warm. Eising for the time, 
Elisha went below and walked, for a few minutes, to and 
fro in the house ; then, once more ascending to the roof, 
stretched himself a second time over the child. But, 
now, life fully returned. The eyes were opened ; the boy 
was once more his mother's joy. " Call her," said Elisha. 
She needed no second summons; divining, we may feel 
certain, from the very tone of the voice, that her child 
was hers again. "Take up thy son," said Elisha. He 
stood beside the couch as the mother entered. It was 
true. Her son was alive again. To kneel at the feet of 
one who had such power with Grod, was a natural im- 
pulse; then/ with sunshine beaming from her soul, through 
the tears she did not wish to restrain, — tears of delight, 
and of nervous excitement and religious gratitude, — she 
bore off the loved one, once more safe ; nestling her one 
ewe lamb — oh, how tenderly ! — in her bosom. 

1 James v. 17, R.V. . 



N A AM AN. 

The incident of Naaman's leprosy and recovery must 
have happened in one of those intervals of peace between 
Israel and Syria which had been so often broken by fierce 
wars. Ahab was dead, and Joram, his son, reigned in his 
stead. The trade-loving Phoenicians sought only gain, 
and excited no fear in Israel, especially since the alliance 
with Tyre through Jezebel. Judah, also, was connected, 
by marriage, with the Samaritan dynasty. But the pos- 
sibility of trouble from Syria was a standing alarm to the 
northern kingdom ; for, in spite of a previous alliance with 
it against Assyria, it had twice, in late years, invaded 
Samaria. Ahab, in fact, had at last fallen, in trying to 
wrest from Ben-hadad the strong town of Eamoth, in 
Gilead, which had been retained by Syria in the teeth of 
a formal agreement to give it back to Israel ; and, strange 
to say, Joram also was to be wounded at a second attack 
on the same fastness, and to die by the hand of Jehu 
while still feeble from the misfortune. A succession of 
kings who took the name of Ben-hadad had reigned in 
Damascus, and, under them, as the gencralissiino of their 
host, ITaaman, a great soldier, had long been a terror to 
Israel, for the audacity and skill with which he had 
retrieved the fortunes of Syria after defeat, and for the 
fierce incursions into the Hebrew territory, by which he 
had spoiled and harassed wide districts. Indeed, it is 

ITS 



NAAMAN. 179 

very probable that to him was due the defeat of Ahab 
before Eamoth-gilead, which was the crowning triumph 
of the Syrian arms in these years. At home, and in the 
lands around, his name must have been famous. 

Honour so great, accompanied as it was -with all the 
luxury and flattering elevation of the highest rank under 
the throne, seemed to make his lot enviable beyond 
words. But only the bird in the nest, that looks so soft 
and beautiful, knows of the tliorn that pierces its breast 
through all. Naaman had been stricken with leprosy, and, 
as a leper, was apparently disqualified, not only from 
holding his great command, but even from mixing w^ith 
his fellow- men. His outward grandeur and real misery 
were a vivid lesson of the vanity of human ambitions, 
— such a lesson as was given the world when the then 
Crown Prince of Germany rode, in magnificent uniform, 
the stateliest of all the twenty princes, who followed the 
carriage of Queen Victoria on her Jubilee procession, 
while, amidst the cheers and admiration he drew from 
thousands, he felt that the fatal disease which was to 
strike him down, after a three months' reign as emperor, 
was already gnawing at his throat. Leprosy was as hope- 
less, though not so quickly fatal, as the fell ailment of 
the magnificent German prince-warrior. Hope cast 
down her eyes. The sunshine of life hid itself behind the 
thick clouds of so great a calamity. 

But what man could not do, was easy for God. Among 
the Israelites swept off from Hebrew territory, to serve as 
slaves to the Syrians, was a young girl, who had been 
fortunate enough to be chosen as a waiting-maid to 
Naaman's wife. Her mistress and she, no doubt, often 
talked of the sad trouble that rested on the household. 



180 NAAMAN. 

One day, however, the girl bethought her of the wonders 
known throughout Israel as done by Elisha the prophet, 
and made bold to tell her thoughts to the great lady. 
" Would God," said she, " my lord were with the prophet 
that is in Samaria! then would he recover him of his 
leprosy." Naaman soon heard this glimpse of hope, and 
it was forthwith discussed with the king, whose permis- 
sion for the journey was needed. " Go, certainly, and at 
once," said Ben-hadad ; " and I will myself send a letter 
to the King of Israel, asking him to heal you. Take with 
you, moreover, rich abundance of gold, silver, and fine 
raiment, as presents to all concerned, to secure their 
good-will." He evidently thought that the prophet was 
either head of an order of magi, or High Priest of Israel, 
and, in either case, more easily moved by a word from 
his sovereign than by direct appeal to himself. Besides, 
to heal so well-known an enemy, might be thought more 
than any Hebrew would be willing to do without a royal 
command. 

The curtness of the missive, however, nearly ruined the 
whole scheme. On reading the Syrian king's words, 
Joram fancied he saw a deliberate purpose to fasten a 
quarrel on him, as an excuse for a new war. Bending 
his clothes in his agitation and grief, he appealed to those 
around whether it was reasonable to ask him to heal a 
man of leprosy. Was he God, to kill and to make alive ? 
for only God could heal this terrible disease. Tongues, 
however, were as busy then as they are now, in repeat- 
ing everything new ; and a matter so sensational as the 
alarm of the king, at this supposed plot of the enemy, at 
Damascus, flew from mouth to mouth. Very soon spread- 
ing through the town, Elisha at last heard of it, and at 



NAAMAN. 181 

once solved the difficulty. Sending to Joram, — not him- 
self going, — he caused the message to be delivered to him: 
" Why have you rent your clothes ? Let the man now 
come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in 
Israel." 

The poor king, much relieved, lost no time, we may be 
sure, in conveying these words to Naaman, and the great 
man presently drove, with his chariots and horses, to the 
house of Elisha. The pleasant hill of Samaria had seldom 
seen so gay a cavalcade, and, assuredly, no citizen had 
ever before had so great an honour done him as was now 
shown to the prophet. Naaman had come all the way 
from Damascus, the bearer of a royal letter ; he was head 
of the army of Syria, — his equipage and suite showed his 
high rank, — and he had come to the door of Elisha's 
humble dwelling, instead of haughtily sending for him. 
Having shown such courtesy, he expected to be received 
as he fancied became him, for etiquette is very strict in 
the East, and it requires that a lower should always go 
out to welcome a superior in station. But Elisha, with a 
grand dignity, as befitted the representative of the King 
of kings, only sent out his attendant with a message 
directing the sufferer to "go to Jordan, and wash in it 
seven times, and his flesh would come again to him, and 
he would be clean." " Is that all ? " muttered Naaman in 
a rage. " I thought he would certainly come out to me, 
at least, and stand, and call on the name of Jehovah his 
God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the 
leper. Are not Abana, which flows, broad and clear, from 
the snows of Lebanon, through the streets of Damascus, 
and Pharpar, which flows into it, as bright and sunny, — 
better than all the waters of Israel; n>ere passing torrents 



182 NAAMAN. 

as they are, or dai^k and muddy, as Jordan is ? May I 
not wash in them and be clean ? " " Turn the horses/' 
cried he to his charioteer, and drove off through the 
narrow street in a rage. 

But anger is seldom wise. What it hindered the 
master from seeing, was judged more sensibly by his retinue. 
Coming to him, apparently in a body, their spokesman, 
modestly, but with evident judgment, strove to bring 
him to more sober thoughts. "My father," said he, "if 
the prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you 
not have done it ? How much rather, then, when he 
says, Wash and be clean ? " Naaman saw his mistake. 
His pride and his foolish dictation of the mode in which 
he would expect to be cured, had led him astray. Now, 
however, with a fine manliness, he frankly admitted that 
he was wrong, and ordered his driver to take the road to 
the Jordan ; the nearest one being down the Wady Farah, 
which descends to the south-east, and opens on the river, 
opposite the mouth of the Zerka. Or he may have driven 
north to Esdraelon, and thence descended the steep defile 
which sinks to Bethshean, with its ford, on the east. 

Humility is the first sign of a healthy spiritual state, 
and, in this case, was the precursor of restored physical 
vigour ; for, after dipping seven times in the Jordan, " his 
flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he 
was clean." From what followed, however, on his return 
to Elisha, it is certain that even he did not fancy it was 
any virtue in the waters tliat had healed him ; for he 
ascribed his cure to the great power of the prophet's God. 
Lowly, unquestioning obedience to God's command, had 
been rewarded by God's favour, as it is always, in some 
form or other, even now. 



GEHAZL 

"Near the church and far from grace" is too true of 
many even now, and it was equally so three thousand 
years ago. Elisha's curate, or deacon, Gehazi, chosen 
by the prophet to be his immediate attendant, and, we 
may believe, his prospective successor, might have been 
expected to show the virtues becoming his position, if 
only from habitual intercourse with such a master. Yet, 
suddenly, the meanest and most repulsive badness reveals 
itself in his character. As the leprosy with which he 
was smitten in punishment broke out, on the instant, 
where health had reigned, so far as one could see, till 
then, sin all at once gleams out in terrible hideousness, 
from a life till that moment credited with special sanctity. 
I have heard of a lady, in whose photograph, specks, 
small but distinct, appeared, to her great annoyance, 
over all her features, though no one could detect them 
with the eye. But a few days later they were explained. 
The searching light had revealed the beginning of mortal 
disease, unsuspected else. In a week or two she lay 
disfigured by a pestilent eruption, her beauty gone for ever. 
Gehazi may have been as good as other men until he 
gave way to temptation. But the bias to the special 
sin which overpowered him must have been in his nature, 
little as men dreamed of it in one so identified with a 
saint like his master. 

183 



184 GEHAZI. 

Naaman had returned to Samaria with a full heart, 
after his cure, and once more drew up before the lowly 
dwelling of the prophet. Elisha had not come out to 
him before, that the honour of the miracle might be 
given wholly to God, undisturbed by any human inter- 
vention, which might have led ]N"aaman to fancy that 
the virtue had, to some degree, come from the prophet. 
Now, however, he meets the Syrian, who, with all his 
retinue, stood reverently before him. What could be 
done to show his gratitude for so great a blessing ? As 
a leper, the poor man had, like his countrymen, believed 
in the gods of Damascus; but now that the cure had 
been divinely wrought on him, which none of the gods 
of his own or other lands could effect, he was a changed 
man. " I have learned," said he, " and know, from what 
has happened to me, that there is no God in all the 
earth but in Israel." Jehovah alone, from henceforth, 
would be his God. He would recognise no other. The 
cure had gone deeper than his flesh. It had waked 
spiritual life in his soul. But gratitude clamoured for 
some expression. How could he show it ! Would Elisha 
accept a thank-offering? It would be a great favour 
if he would. The prophets of the nations around grew 
rich, by the gifts received from those who believed 
themselves benefited by them. Samuel had accepted a 
small gift from Saul; Ahijah had accepted a present 
from the wife of Jeroboam ; Elisha himself, had taken a 
gift of bread and corn, which, however, he used for 
the good of others; and it was, indeed, the recognised 
custom for any one coming to " a man of God " to take 
some present with him.^ But Naaman's case was peculiar. 

1 1 Sam. ix. 8 ; 1 Kings xiv. 3 ; 2 Kings iv. 42, 



GEHAZI. 185 

No suspicion of interested motives could be allowed 
to lessen the impression, on his heart, of his cure being 
a free gift from the pitying love of God, to whom alone 
all thanks were therefore due. Nothing whatever, for 
this reason, could be accepted. " Well," said the Syrian, 
" if it must be so, I yield ; but, I pray thee, let thy 
servant have the gift of two mules' burden of earth, 
to build an altar with it to Jehovah, on my return to 
Damascus ; for, henceforth, I will present neither sacrifice 
nor offering to any other God but Him." The altar 
of earth from Israel would keep him in mind of its 
God, whose worshipper he had become, with his whole 
heart. He might have taken the earth, without asking, 
from any place, on his return journey ; but he would 
fain associate it with the remembrance of the prophet. 
It has been thought that it was intended to form a sacred 
spot of Israelitish soil, on which to set an altar, in the 
idea that a god could be rightly w^orshipped only in 
his own land, of which, by a fiction, the soil thus trans- 
ferred would be deemed a part. But Naaman had 
accepted Jehovah as the God of gods, with no local 
restriction, recognising that there was "no God but He 
in all the earth." ^ One thing more was to be asked. 
As a high official, the convert would have to attend 
his king to the temple of Hadad Eimmon, the chief 
god of Syria, and would have to prostrate himself when 
the king did so. It would only be a form, however; 
for his heart was true to Jehovah, and he would be 
worshipping Him, though forced to bow in the house 

1 Naaman's altar of Hebrew earth reminds us of the synagogue mentioned 
by Benjamin of Tudela, as seen by him at Naliardea, in Persia, built of earth 
and stones from Jerusalem. Altars of earth were common (Exod. xx. 24, and 
elsewhere). 



186 GEHAZI. 

of Eimmon. " In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant," 
added he meekly. ]N'or did the sweet charity of Elisha 
turn him away. With a loving farewell, " Go in peace," 
he waved a parting to the great man, and the interview 
ended. 

]N"ow, however, came the devil's chance. Gehazi had 
listened to all that passed, with no such gracious feelings 
as filled the breast of his master. This Syrian, the 
arch-enemy of Israel in past days, a man passing rich, 
had been allowed to go off without giving Elisha even 
such a trifle as all brought him. He would run after 
him, and get something from him. Xaaman's chariots 
were still near enough to be overtaken ; so away hurried 
Gehazi, out we may suppose at one of the two gateways, 
still traceable on the hill of Samaria, and over the valley, 
to the upward slopes of the surrounding hills, where 
he before long overtook the cavalcade, the Syrian having 
halted on seeing some one running after it. Coming 
down from his chariot, as an inferior to a superior, — 
for even the attendant of the prophet was a great man 
to the convert, — Gehazi was asked if all was well. " Oh, 
yes ! " said he. " But two young prophets have just 
come from the hills of Ephraim,^ to the south of us : 
give them, I pray thee, a talent of sHver [about £300] 
and two changes of raiment." " Two young prophets, 
did you say ? " breaks in jSTaaman. " Then take a talent, 
pray, for each of them ; " and so two talents were sent 
back, carried in huge bags, by two slaves, and, with the 
money, two changes of raiment. Gehazi could not, 
however, let them be carried straight to Elisha's house, 
and had them left at the foot of the hill, where he, 

1 Gilgal and Bethel lay on these hills. 



GEHAZI. 187 

doubtless, put them in safety for a time, getting them 
taken to the house a little later, when, as he thought, 
he could do it unperceived. His plunder duly secreted, 
the wretched man " stood " once more " before his master ; " 
that is, went in to wait on him. " Where have you 
come from, Gehazi ? " asked the prophet. " Thy servant 
went no whither," answered the hypocrite. " What ! " 
answered Elisha. '' Did not my heart go with you when 
the man turned from his chariot to meet you ? Is 
this a time to receive money, and to receive garments, 
and to lay plots thus for getting the means to buy 
oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and men 
slaves and women slaves?" To lie would have been 
unworthy at any time, but to do so to get the advantage 
of one who was not an Israelite, — a man whose newly 
kindled faith in Jehovah demanded the most careful 
avoidance of any appearance of greed or selfishness in 
His representatives, — was a crime base beyond words. 
The thought of such wickedness overwhelmed Elisha. 
"Xaaman has been cured of his leprosy," continued he 
to Gehazi, "but your sin has brought it on yourself, 
as a well-merited punishment. The leprosy of the Syrian 
shall cleave to you and your children for ever." It was a 
terrible sentence, and, we may hope, w^as mitigated, in 
after years, at least on the children ; but, meanwhile, 
the unfortunate man went out of the chamber "a leper 
as white as snow." 



THE ATTEMPTED CAPTURE OF ELISHA. 

A PERIOD of temporary eclipse which had stricken Assyria 
in the time of David, had made it possible for that great 
king to found a powerful Jewish empire. Various coun- 
tries, from the Euphrates to Lebanon, had revolted from 
Nineveh, but, having come into conflict with the Hebrews, 
had been subdued by them and been made their tribu- 
taries. This exceptional period of triumph was, however, 
very short; for we are told that Eezin, a Syrian leader, 
harassed Israel "all the days of Solomon," having first 
torn from him a wide territory, of which Damascus was 
the capital, from which he extended his power so greatly 
as to be spoken of as " reigning over Syria." The victories 
of David and the yoke imposed by them had thus been 
avenged ; but the memory of its subjection kindled a 
permanent bitterness towards Israel in the hearts of the 
Syrian rulers, so that, from generation to generation, the 
two nations were nearly always at war. The King of 
Damascus in the reign of Ahab and Joram, — Ben-hadad 
II., or, rather, "Ben Hadar," — " The son of (the god) Adar," 
kept up the feud with fierce pertinacity, invading the 
northern kingdom three times during his reign. In two 
of these campaigns he laid siege to Samaria and reduced 
it to great straits, though forced on both occasions, in the 
end, to raise the siege. In the other campaign, which 
followed the first siege, he was still more unfortunate, 

188 



THE ATTEMPTED CAPTURE OF ELISHA. 189 

being not only defeated by Abab, but taken prisoner, 
though set free by a foolish magnanimity on the part of 
the Hebrew king, who paid the penalty for his weakness 
by his death at a battle before Eamoth-gilead, brought 
about by the perfidy of the Syrian. There had been 
intervals, however, of friendliness between Israel and 
Syria, through pressure of danger from the renewed vigour 
of Assyria, which, under Shalmaneser II., as he tells us 
in his annals, waged three campaigns against Damascus ; 
Ahab fighting in close alliance with Ben-hadad in the 
first of them. 

During the years between the Syrian defeat at Aphek 
and the second siege of Samaria, the almost chronic war 
between Damascus and Israel seems to have degenerated 
into a succession of forays into each other's territories, — 
such as that in which the Hebrew girl was carried off, 
who became a slave to the wife of Naaman. These raids 
had latterly, it would seem, especially for their object 
the capture of the Hebrew king, perhaps to soothe the 
wounded pride of Ben-hadad, for his own humiliation by 
having been taken at Aphek; but they were uniformly 
unsuccessful. The Syrian might plan with his officers 
the subtlest arrangements, based, no doubt, on information 
received from spies in Samaria : somehow the King of 
Israel always heard of them, and changed his movements 
so as to avoid the trap laid for him. Ben-hadad was 
greatly troubled ; for it seemed certain that some one on 
his staff was playing the traitor. Calling them round 
him, he asked if no one would let him know which of 
their number was thus false, but was answered that they 
were all alike true to him, — the explanation of the King 
of Israel discovering the snares of Ben-hadad being that 



190 THE ATTEMPTED CAPTURE OF ELISHA. 

there was a prophet in Israel who told hira all that was 
planned in Damascus, however great the secrecy. observed. 
" He knows," said the speaker, " even what your majesty 
says in your royal sleeping-chamber." 

Against such a power the Syrian was evidently help- 
less; but, instead of ceasing to fight against it, the thought 
struck him that, if he could get hold of this wonderful 
man, he could get him to do for the ruler of Damascus 
what he was now doing for the lord of Samaria. Elisha 
— for it was he — was, it seemed, at that time, in Dothan, 
a small town of which some ruins and a well still mark 
the site. It lay on the south-east border of a fine undu- 
lating plain of rich soil, in a framework of green round- 
topped hills of no great height. The caravan route from 
beyond Jordan passes, from Esdraelon, close to it, stretch- 
ing on to the south-west, down the slopes of the central 
hills, to the sea-coast plain. When I was at it, a line of 
camels was stalking on, with skins of oil and bags of 
wheat, — much like those of the Midianites to whom the 
sons of Jacob sold Joseph in this very neighbourhood. 
We meet Elisha in many parts of the country, as if he had 
gone from place to place, as the chief representative of 
Jehovah-worship, to keep it alive, and minister to its 
faithful adherents. Jezebel, strange to say, was still alive 
in Samaria or Jezreel, while the prophet was thus quietly 
]"ourueying through the kingdom ; and, indeed, he lived 
in Samaria itself, as an honoured citizen, at least after 
Ahab's death. Joram, that king's successor, evidently, 
hindered Jezebel from injuring him, taking him under 
his special protection, and showing him all possible 
respect and honour. 

But now Ben-hadad had planned how to capture the 



THE ATTEMPTED CAPTURE OF ELISHA. 191 

prophet. '• Horses, and chariots, and a great host " — that 
is, a strong detachment of Syrian troops — were despatched 
to Dothan, and took up their station by night on the 
heights round it, so as to preclude Elisha's escape. His 
attendant, who filled the place of the unfortunate Gehazi, 
was the first in the little household to see them, which he 
did at his rising in the early morning. What was to be 
done ? The Syrians would either carry them off as slaves 
or kill them. Hastening to his master, he told him the 
terrible news. But Elisha heard him quietly. "You 
need not be afraid," said he ; " for they that be with us 
are more than they that be with them." And then, 
breaking into a prayer that the terrified creature should 
have his eyes opened, and telling him to look round, he 
saw that the height on which Dothan stood was " full of 
horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." Mean- 
while the Syrians closed in round the town ; but Elisha, 
we are told, prayed to the Lord to smite them with 
temporary blindness, and the prayer having been heard, 
himself went out and volunteered to bring them to the 
man they sought. This, of course, he would do, as he was 
their guide ; but he took them away to Samaria, where 
their " eyes were opened," and they saw, not only Elisha, 
but their own helpless position. In ordinary cases, their 
death would have followed presently; but Elisha was a 
man of gentle spirit, and induced the king, not only to 
spare them, but to send them off to Damascus in peace, 
after giving them ample refreshment. 

The spirit thus sweetly shown marks the whole life of 
the prophet. He heals the waters of Jericho, to benefit 
the people round. He increases the widow's oil, to prevent 
her sons' being sold as slaves for her husband's debts. He 



192 THE ATTEMPTED CAPTUKE OF ELISHA. 

repays his hostess at Shunem by obtaining for her from 
God the gift of a son, the supreme honour of a Hebrew 
matron; and he restores the child to life when, in his 
boyhood, he had been suddenly stricken down. He re- 
places even so slight a loss as the head of an axe, lost in 
the waters of the Jordan. He makes the poisonous 
pottage harmless. He gives to the poor the presents 
brought him, and miraculously increases them, that none 
may want. In the agony of the siege of Samaria he fore- 
tells plenty. Always tender and loving, he is a marked 
contrast to his great master, Elijah, who smites the four 
hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and utters the terrible 
doom of the house of Omri. The one was like the thunder 
and lightnings of the vision at Horeb ; the other, like the 
still small voice. 



THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

It is very striking to notice how true great movements 
remain to the spirit of their origin. The characteristics 
of New or Old England may be traced to the beginnings 
of both ; and so, no doubt, with all other communities or 
nations. The fragment of Israel which remained true to 
the line of David at the division of the kingdom, con- 
tinued its conservatism from generation to generation so 
faithfully, that the royal line, thus deliberately adopted, 
retained its seat till the downfall of the kingdom. The 
throne of the northern kingdom, on the other hand, sprang 
from revolution, and revolution marked it till Samaria 
became Assyrian. Pascal says that imagination is the 
greatest of all powers, and, indeed, rules all things. In 
Judah, the sentiment of loyalty and the spell of a great 
name, coloured the story of each succeeding age. In the 
northern kingdom, the sword had opened the way to the 
crown, and it claimed to do so to the end. The same 
characteristic marks the religious history of each. The 
South remained true to the Temple at Jerusalem, with its 
sacred traditions and its continuous presentation of the 
ancient faith. And it was from the South that Judaism, 
now the universal creed of the Hebrew, and once the 
cradle of Christianity, was developed. 

The North broke away from the past, and it kept drift- 
ing farther and farther from it with each century. The 

193 ^ 



194 THE NORTHEEN KINGDOM. 

calves at Betliel and Dan, and the irregu]ar priesthood, 
led the way to a shipwreck of the old national religion. 
The Baal worship of Ahab found a soil ready for it, and 
the reproaches of Hosea and Amos show that the moral 
decay kept deepening to the last. There had been gross 
oppression nnder Solomon, and Eehoboam had spoken 
harshly and unadvisedly; but it fared better, after all, 
with those who were true to both, than with their brethi-en, 
who fancied they had found the millennium in exalting 
Jeroboam. Yet the !N"orth proposed to keep on the old 
lines, except in the choice of a king and the reform of 
abuses. Jehu did not destroy the " calves " at Bethel and 
Dan, though so furious against idolatry, recognising in 
them only symbols of Jehovah. But a sacred ox was 
one of the forms in which Baal was worshipped among 
the Phoenicians, so that it was easy for the ignorant 
masses to confuse the heathen god with their own. 

What scenes of heroism and tenacious fidelity to their 
convictions rise at the thought of the seven thousand who, 
in spite of Jezebel, had not bowed the knee to Baal ! To 
have reduced the worshippers of Jehovah in the whole 
w^ide territory of Israel to so small a number, speaks of 
hideous, relentless persecution, and no less so does the 
glimpse of the hundred prophets living in caves, on bread 
and water, rather than abjure their religion. It recalls 
such memories as the dragonnades in the Cevennes, under 
Louis XIV., or the cruelties of Mackenzie and Claver- 
house to the Covenanters of Scotland. 

Meanwhile, from the safe retreats of Gilead, the strange, 
Arab-like apparition of Elijah stands before the very 
fountainhead of this fire-stream, King Ahab, and braves 
him to his face. He appears, however, now, as always, 



THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 195 

only to vanish, as soon as he has fulfilled the commission 
of the moment, as if the enthusiasm which dared so much, 
gave way before human weakness, when it had accom- 
plished its special aim. To be hidden safely and fed 
tenderly, not only within a short distance of Samaria, in 
the case of the torrent Cherith, but in the very home-land 
of Jezebel, at Sarepta, must have taught him, as it may 
teach us all, that the shadow of the Almighty is a safe 
retreat, even in the unlikeliest surroundings. 'Nor is the 
story of the widow's meal and oil without comfort to us, 
if we could take it; for, surely, to walk humbly and 
lovingly with our God, is to be remembered by Him in 
our evil day. The most touching lesson of trust in the 
heavenly Father I ever got, was from an elderly man, the 
keeper of the oldest mosque in Cairo, — I forget its name. 
He told me he had many children, and that for salary he 
could only reckon on a gift of a hundred piastres, less 
than one pound sterling, once a year, when the Khedive 
came on his annual visit to the mosque. " How do you 
keep your family on that ? " I asked. " I trust in the 
All-Merciful," said the truly good man, looking reverently 
to the heavens. The Phoenician widow must have been 
like him, at least after Elijah's arrival in her house. 

The weakness of Ahab in fretting so childishly, at the 
refusal of Naaman to sell him his ancestral vineyard, is 
striking in one who bore himself so nobly after receiving 
his death-wound. To make his chariot-driver hold him 
up in his chariot, all through the battle, lest his disappear- 
ance should unnerve his men, was a wonderful instance 
of strongmindedness. So near do contrasts and contra- 
dictions lie in us all. Jezebel's guilt in the matter 
was revolting, in its cold, crafty wickedness ; but Ahab's 



196 THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

acceptance of the ground thus gained, sank him to her 
level To take advantage of the badness of others, is to 
show that we only want the courage to be equally vile. 

The scene at Carmel, when Elijah stood alone before 
the mob of his priestly enemies, his self-possession, his 
mocking consciousness of superiority, his supreme trust 
in his God, — all the elements of the picture, — realise a 
sublimity of faith in the Unseen which may well be 
memorable for all ages. At Horeb — " the Dry " — we have 
the Divine as compared with the human, — the still small 
voice embodying the heavenly mind and will, while these 
are awanting in the hurricane, the earthquake, the peal- 
ing thunderstorm and the accompanying lightning, — an 
aggregate in which the prophet might well see the counter- 
part of his own stormy zeal against the priests of Baal. 
That even so great a saint was yet so human, is a comfort 
to those, who, though they would fain serve God, do not 
feel themselves saints at all; and still more so, is the 
thought that, though he was a man of like passions as 
ourselves, the seal of high approval was, after all, so 
wonderfully set on his fidelity, in his departure from 
among men. 

Yet Elisha, his successor, seems as if he had seen the 
weak point in his great master's nature. Perhaps in his 
quiet home in the ghor of the Jordan — if, indeed, he lived, 
as well as did his daily work, in a place so sultry— he had 
escaped the fierceness of the times, which stirred up the 
soul of Elijah to such a Knox-like sternness. He was, 
at least, a striking contrast to him in his spirit ; living 
quietly in Samaria, even during the life of Jezebel ; work- 
ing miracles of love and healing, with few exceptions ; 
tender in his charity to the Syrian general, long the foe 



THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 197 

of his country, but turned to be the follower of its God : 
honoured even by the king, in his later days, as the father 
of Israel ; a man of peace and gentleness ; much more like 
the still small voice than Elijah had at any time been. In 
the incident of Gehazi, indeed, his zeal for the honour of 
his God made him, for the moment, terrible in his anger ; 
but who can tell the evil wrought by the unfortunate 
man's sin ? The whole lesson of the Syrian's cure was 
neutralised, and its whole influence at Damascus possibly 
counteracted ; for, had Gehazi not thrown a sordid element 
into the relations of the leper and his healer, an impression 
in favour of Jehovah might have resulted in the Syrian 
court, of the highest benefit both to itself and to Israel. 
As it was, we find Ben-hadad presently harrying the 
northern kingdom by his raids, as if no effect had been 
produced by the miracle, and see him planning to kidnap 
Elisha at Dothan, apparently in the belief that to get him 
into his power would be to secure his magic arts in his 
own service. 



SIEGE OF SAMARIA, 

The bitter hatred of Damascus towards Israel, due, 
perhaps, in part, to the remembrance of David's conquest 
of Syria, and the sufferings of the war of independence 
under Solomon, kept ever and anon breaking out into 
open hostilities during the reign of Ben-hadad II., as it 
was destined to do, after his death, till Assyria broke the 
power of the Syrian monarchy. This king had at one time 
been the ally of Ahab in a league against the threatened 
advance of the kings of JSTineveh, but this had been followed 
by two campaigns of Damascus against Samaria, ending 
in the utter defeat of the former and the taking of Ben- 
hadad prisoner, which might have secured great results 
for Israel but for Ahab's weakly setting him free. Years 
of desultory warfare seem to have followed, each country 
wasting as much as it could of the other, by harassing 
border raids ; but, in the end, Ahab fell before Eamoth- 
gilead, fighting against the implacable Syrians. Ahaziah's 
short reign has left no record of his relations with 
Damascus ; but Joram, his successor, had to endure 
inroads, like those in which ISTaaman gained his reputa- 
tion as a dashing soldier, and now, having; been aojain 
invaded by Ben-hadad in full force, had to see his capital 
invested, and furiously assailed, — a sign that he had not 
been able to meet his opponent in the open field. 

Samaria (Heb., " Shomron ") stood on a pleasant rounded 

198 



SIEGE OF SAMARIA. 199 

hill, which swells up like a boss from a buckler, in the 
centre of a green undulating plain, surrounded at some 
distance by fertile hills. It could not have been a very 
large place, according to our ideas ; but Omri, its founder, 
had shown his genius by the selection of a spot naturally 
so strong, for his capital. Escarpments are yet to be seen 
on some of the slopes ; and high walls, with great castel- 
lated gates, rose defiantly round the whole town. In our 
day, it would be untenable, if an enemy held the heights 
encircling it ; but there was no artillery in Ben-hadad's 
time, and Samaria, seated on its proud hill, could only be 
taken by blockade or by storming. The Syrians were 
able to cut off all supplies from without, and it seemed as 
if they would speedily starve the city into submission. 
So close, indeed, was the investment, that provisions 
soon failed so completely among the besieged, that, at last, 
the head of an ass — an unclean beast — was sold for eighty 
shekels. When it is remembered that the Orientals 
never eat the head of any beast, the intensity of the 
distress implied in their bidding such a large sum for the 
head of an ass may be imagined. The fourth part of a 
cab — that is, less than the sixth part of a quart — of a 
kind of small pulse known by the name of " doves' dung," 
was sold for five shekels ; the shekel being equal to about 
two shillings and sixpence. 

Meanwhile, the king was manfully doing his best, 
carefully making circuits of the walls, inside the parapets, 
to visit the different watch-posts, and to take advantage 
of anything in his favour. On one of these rounds, how- 
ever, the extremity of the wretchedness now endured was 
brought keenly home to him. A woman having loudly 
implored his help as he passed, he could only answer that 



200 SIEGE OF SAMARIA. 

he was, alas I unable to do anything for her. God, only, 
he said, could relieve her wants. But her looks awakened 
his sympathy. " What aileth thee ?" asked he ; and then 
she told him how she and another woman had agreed to 
kill and eat each other's child, and how her child had 
been boiled and eaten, but now the other woman drew 
back from her bargain, and had hidden her boy. Horri- 
fied at the story, the king rent his clothes, as Orientals 
do in moments of deep distress. He was already sad 
enough; for it was seen, through his torn robe, that he 
was wearing rough sackcloth next his skin, — the expres- 
sion of deep humiliation and penitence. 

But this formal repentance for personal or national sins 
had left him unchanged in his inner self. Elisha had 
counselled resistance, and the woman's story was the 
result. " God do so to himself, and more also, if the 
prophet's head stood on him an hour longer." He could 
blame the prophet, but all his sorrow had not taught 
him the first step towards a better mind, by blaming 
himself. Meanwhile, Elisha was quietly sitting in his 
house with the elders of the city, who had come, we may 
suppose, to take counsel with him. Suddenly turning to 
them, he told them that the king — a true son of Ahab, 
the murderer of the prophets and of Naboth, and himself 
now bent on murder — had sent a messenger to behead 
him. They must refuse him admission ; for the king 
would be sorry for his command as soon as he had given 
it, and would follow, in haste, to prevent its execution. 
It was indeed so. While the soldiers still parleyed with 
the elders, outside the door, the king appeared, his fury 
gone, his spirit changed. "Behold," said he to Elisha, 
" this evil is of the Lord. He has willed that we open 



SIEGE OF SAMARIA. 201 

the gates to the Syrian. Why should I wait for deliver- 
ance any longer ? " The horrors he had heard seemed to 
tell him that hope of aid from God was vain ; that sur- 
render was inevitable. What had the prophet to say ? 
" Hear the word of the Lord," replied he. " To-morrow, 
about this time, a seah — that is, a peck — of fine flour will 
be sold for a shekel, and two pecks of barley for a shekel, 
in the gate of Samaria." "What!" said the officer on 
whom the king leaned, " if God make windows in heaven, 
and rain down flour and barley, that may be, but not 
otherwise." " You will see it," answered Elisha, " but will 
taste neither." 

Meanwhile, crouching outside the gate of the city, the 
law of Moses not letting them live inside,^ — as, indeed, 
even ordinary Eastern custom would have ordained, — sat 
four lepers, whom no one in the city fed any longer, and 
who were, hence, in the sorest straits. Feeling that, even 
if they got into Samaria,, they would die of famine, while, 
if they sat where they were, 'they were no better off, they 
resolved, as soon as it was dark, to steal out to the Syrian 
camp. But when they had reached the nearest part of it, 
strange to say, they found the ground deserted. Wander- 
ing farther, it was still the same. The Syrians were gone. 
The Lord, says the sacred narrative, " had made them hear 
a noise of chariots, and of horses, even the noise of a great 
host," and panic had seized them. Joram, they fancied, 
had hired the kings of the Hittites, from the north, and 
the kings of Egypt, from the far south. So wildly does 
fear alarm itself, by inventing imaginary terrors. Forth- 
with their only thought was to save their lives, leaving 
the camp as it was, with their tents, their stores, their 

i Lev. xiii. 4G ; Num. v. 3, &c. 



202 SIEGE OF SAMARIA. 

baggage, horses, and asses. It was a grand time for the 
poor lepers. Entering one of the tents, — one, we may be 
sure, that promised well, — they ate and drank to their 
heart's content, and then proceeded to plunder it, and a 
second one, of silver, gold, and raiment, which they carried 
off and hid. But it would be dangerous to wait till day- 
light without telling, in the city, how matters stood. 
Coming back, therefore, to the warders at the gate, or on 
the walls, they broke the great news to them. 

A few minutes served to repeat it in the king's palace. 
But Joram was incredulous. It was only a feint, to 
draw them from the city, and swoop down on them. 
'^ But, my lord," answered one near, " whatever may 
happen to any who are sent out, it cannot be worse than 
has happened to so many of us within, already, and as 
must happen to us all, if they do not confirm the good 
news. Pray, suffer some men to go out and bring us back 
word." Two chariots with horses were therefore sent off, 
but only to find that the Syrians were in full retreat 
across the Jordan, in such terror, that the way was 
strewn with " garments and vessels," which they had 
thrown away in their haste. Eeturning, and announcing 
the great deliverance wrought for them, the gates were 
opened, and the famished citizens, old and young, let 
loose on the rich supplies of the Syrian tents and maga- 
zines. In one night misery had passed away, and next 
day Elisha's words as to the price of fine flour and of 
barley came true. It is added, however, that the officer 
who had sneered at the assurance, having been in com- 
mand at the gate, was thrown down in the wild crowd- 
ing of the people after food, and perished without tasting 
the spoil. 



JEHU. 

On the day when Elijah suddenly appeared on the way, 
to Ahab, and denounced a curse on him and his house 
for the murder of JSTaboth, there rode, in attendance on 
him, in the chariot following that of the king, an officer 
of his army, destined to work the fulfilment of the awful 
words he then heard from the lips of the prophet. It 
was Jehu, a fiery and resolute soldier, with no pity in 
his nature, of boundless ambition, and with a power of 
smooth-faced dissimulation, worthy of one who was to 
be a successful conspirator on the greatest scale. Years 
passed; bub, though the ominous words of Elijah had 
sunk deep in his heart, he bore himself so graciously, and 
with such apparent loyalty, that he steadily rose, till he 
gained the position of captain of the host, or commander-in- 
chief, which placed him next the royal family in dignity. 
The old quarrel of the retention of Eamoth, in Gilead, 
by Syria, in the face of treaty obligations to restore it to 
Israel, still prolonged hostilities between the two nations. 
Ahab had died under its walls, and now Joram, his son, 
had been forced to go back to Jezreel, from before it, to 
recover from a wound received in its attack ; the com- 
mand, in his absence, passing, as a matter of course, to 
Jehu. Ahab's death had hindered any successful revolu- 
tion, for the time ; but the temporary helplessness of his 
son, and the position it gave Jehu, brought the iittinof 

203 



204 JEHU. 

moment. A prophet had first, apparently, kindled the 
idea of conspiracy in the mind of the traitor, and now a 
second was finally to stimulate his brooding purpose into 
fierce action. Suddenly, while Jehu was sitting in counsel 
with his officers, a young prophet, sent by Elisha, appeared 
before him, his outer coat girt up, as with runners or men 
in great haste, and, calling him apart, to' the innermost 
room, where he was absolutely alone, solemnly anointed 
him king; telling him, as he did so, that the especial 
reason of his elevation was that he might exterminate 
" the whole house of Ahab," as utterly as their destroyers 
had rooted out the dynasties of Jeroboam and Baasha. 
This said, the visitor fled. " Who was he ? " rose from 
all lips. But Jehu for the moment prevaricated, to 
gather his thoughts. Presently, however, he told his 
stafit'. He had taken care to be popular with all who 
could help him ; and while the king had been undermined 
by intrigues, his submission to Jezebel had ruined him, 
at least with the army. A shout rose at once from all 
the officers present, hailing Jehu as king, and the whole 
force joined in the cry, when the usurper, brought out to 
the top of the stair leading to the flat roof, and seated on 
an extemporised throne, with bright war cloaks for 
tapestry, at his feet, was shown to the soldiery as their 
new monarch. Wild flourishes of trumpets rent the air. 
Jehu was their king ! Military revolutions had marked 
all the past of the northern kingdom, and continued to 
be its characteristic to the end. It was a military, not 
a popular, monarchy. 

ISTo time, however, was to be lost. Chariots having been 
ordered, Jehu, with a detachment, rode off with a wild 
speed, for which he was notorious, down the ravines, to 



JEHTT. 205 

the Jordan, and, thence, up the defile behind Beisan, to 
Jezree], that he might reach it before news of the revolt 
had spread. The warder on the tower there, seeing 
chariots dashing toward him, sounded the alarm, and a 
rider was sent off to find out who approached. But he 
was not allowed to return ; and a second was, in the same 
way, detained. At last Joram felt sure it was Jehu, from 
his reckless driving, and, in his anxiety to know why the 
army had thus been left, himself rode out to learn. " Has 
Hazael made peace ? " shouted he, as he got near the 
traitor. Jehu's answer showed" his mood. The king, like 
his father, had let his hated mother rule, and this was a 
revolt against him, on her account. Muttering to Ahaziah 
of Judah, his sister Athaliah's son, who rode beside him 
in a second chariot, that treason was afoot, he turned and 
fled, but only to fall out of his chariot, the next moment, 
mortally wounded by an arrow from Jehu's bow. To 
throw his body into what had been the vineyard of Naboth 
stopped progress for a few moments, and enabled Ahaziah 
to gain the rough pass to the south, near Enganiiim ; but 
there he, too, was overtaken and fatally wounded ; dying 
at the town of Megiddo, near at hand. 

Jezebel, now a woman of about sixty, had seen all, and, 
brave to the last, resolved either to make a conquest of 
Jehu or to defy him to his worst. " What came of Zimri 
that murdered his master ? " cried she, as Jehu approached. 
But the next moment, the poor painted and tyred old 
woman, vain even in her agony of excitement, was hurled 
down from the window, at Jehu's command, by some 
eunuchs, and lay there till the town-dogs, at nightfall, 
finding the corpse, devoured it, all but the skull, the 
palms, and the soles of her feet. 



206 JEHU. 

This, however, was not enough. Eastern policy, on the 
rise of a new dynasty, and too often even on the accession 
of a new monarch, is satisfied only by the extirpation of 
all branches of the former king's family. Seventy sons 
of Ahab — for polygamous families of Oriental sovereigns 
are often enormous — were presently -put to death at 
Samaria, and their heads sent to the new ruler ; and forty- 
two princes of the royal house of Judah, coming on a visit 
to Joram, in ignorance of his death, shared the same fate. 
The dynasty of Omri was exterminated, and the curse of 
Elijah fulfilled. 

According to his light, Jehu was a fanatical opponent 
of Jezebel's heathen innovations, and loyal to the old 
national God, Jehovah. But his only ideas of reformation 
were those of a cruel and bloody mind. Summoning to 
Samaria all the followers of Baal, as if to a grand festival 
in honour of the god, he drew together a vast assembly 
into the grounds of the heathen temple, pretending to be 
himself an idolater; but when they were once helplessly 
shut in, he caused them to be hewn down to the last man. 
Elijah had slaughtered the priests of the idol ; but Jehu 
killed a vast multitude of his countrymen, led into a snare 
by his hypocritical treachery. The one idea, apparently, 
in his mind, was to prevent any counter-revolution. He 
would secure his throne by leaving no one alive who could 
disturb him. Jehovah-worship, which was still dear to 
the hereditary instincts of the nation, though of little 
influence on its general character, was duly restored, but 
in the form established by Jeroboam at the founding of 
the kingdom ; the golden calves being retained, at Bethel 
and Dan, as the symbols of the God of their fathers. 

Dreading the power of Damascus under Hazael who 



JEHU. 207 

had succeeded to tlie throne by murdering Ben-hadad the 
king, Jehu took the further step, in addition to his restor- 
ing the worship of Jehovah, of becoming a tributary of 
Shalmaneser II., the mighty ruler of Mneveh. His pay- 
ment of the amount imposed on him by Assyria, is still 
represented to us in a series of small sculptures on a 
miniature obelisk, fortunately recovered from the ruins 
of the Assyrian capital. The bearers of the gifts are 
dressed in long sacks, elaborately fringed, without sleeves, 
and carry bars of silver and gold, gold in plates, gold 
table-utensils, gold drinking- vessels, bars of lead, a sceptre 
for the Great King, spears, and other articles of value; 
hardly any of them, however, such as the territory of the 
northern kingdom yielded. We have thus a glance at the 
social development of the country in Jehu's time, revealing 
a progress in metallurgy and the textile arts which might 
not have been expected, though the great mass of the 
people were probably far too poor to indulge in luxury. 
Jehu's reign, under the protectipn of Assyria, was com- 
paratively quiet, and he had the advantage of Elisha living 
permanently under him in Samaria ; for the prophet con- 
tinued to witness for God more than forty years after 
Jehu's accession, though he took no prominent part in 
public affairs. Jehu reigned in all twenty-eight years, 
and left his throne to his son, — a monument of the differ- 
ence between ferocious orthodoxy and essential religious- 
ness ; for no one could have shown more of the one, or 
less of the other, so far as his public acts reveal him. 



yEROBOAM It. AND THE PROPHET yONAH, 

In the notices left us of the reign of Jeroboam 11. of 
Samaria, the fourth king of the house of Jehu, we read 
that " he restored the border of Israel from the entering 
in of Hamath," in the valley of the Orontes, north of 
Damascus, " unto the sea of the Arabah," that is, the Dead 
Sea, " according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, 
which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah the 
son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher," 
— now the village El Mesh-hed, three miles north-east 
of Nazareth, where what is called the tomb of Jonah is 
still shown.i Jeroboam II. reigned, apparently, from B.C. 
823 to B.C. 772; and as the Jonah of the prophetical 
book known by that name is said to have been " the son 
of Amittai," he may with safety be identified with the 
prophet of the days of that king, so that we thus learn in 
what age he lived. 

The word of the Lord, we are told, came to Jonah, 
commanding him to " arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, 
and cry against it," because its wickedness had " come up 
before " God. A mission to rouse the abhorred Assyrian 
to repentance was, however, so distasteful to the prophet, 
as he himself tells us,^ that, rather than be the instru- 
ment of saving from Divine wrath such a heathen place, 

^ "Survey of Western Palestine." Memoirs, I., 365. 

2 Jonah iv. 1, 2. 

208 



JEROBOAM II. AND THE PROPHET JONAH. 209 

hateful to an Israelite, he resolved, instead of going to 
the east, as he was enjoined, to betake himself to the very 
farthest west. It seems, indeed, as if he had the idea 
that, by doing so, he would have withdrawn himself " from 
the presence of the Lord ; " as if God were, in his mind, 
only a local divinity, ruling over Israel, but unable to see 
the fugitive if he fled far enough beyond His territory. 

Going down from his hills, therefore, to Joppa, he found 
in the roadstead there — for there is no harbour fit for 
more than boats, and dangerous rocks fringe the shore — a 
Phoenician Tarshish-ship, a name — like that of our " East 
Indiamen," of old days, — for the great vessels of Tyre or 
Sidon which traded with distant ports ; the one for which 
this particular ship was bound being actually Tarshish, a 
town, or district, of Spain, outside the Straits of Gib- 
raltar.^ A description of one of these famous vessels 
given by Ezekiel,^ tells us that its timbers were cypress 
wood from Hermon ; its masts, cedars of Lebanon ; its 
oars, of the oak of Bashan; its deck, of larch from the 
islands of the Levant, at times inlaid with ivory ; its sails, 
of costly Egyptian linen ; the awning over its deck, dyed 
with rich blue and purple, of great price, from the Grecian 
factories of Laconia. To man such a floating palace, we 
are told, sailors, steersmen, rowers, ship carpenters, and 
fighting men, were gathered from the places where the 
best of each class were to be had. Of course, ancient 
ideas of grandeur in naval architecture have to be remem- 
bered, but, still, a "Tarshish ship" must have been an 
imposing creation. 

1 There is no cerf-ainty as to the exact position of Tarshish. Some think 
it is now represented by Cadiz ; others question this. It may have been the 
native name of a district on the coast. 

- Ezek. xxvii. 4 ff. 





210 JEEOBOAM II. AND THE PEOPHET JONAH. 

Paying the fare to Tarshish, Jonah went on board, 
going down into its cabins to hide himself from all, and 
perhaps, in his simplicity, from God ! The ship was on 
the point of sailing, and so, without delay, he found himself 
on the way to the far-distant west. Yiolent storms, how- 
ever, often sweep the coast of Palestine, and one of these, 
we are told, ere long put the ship in great danger. The 
huge waves threw themselves down on it, as if they would 
break it in pieces, and at last a panic arose ; even the crew 
thinking that only death was before them. As Phoeni- 
cians, each of them had his favourite god, and nothing 
was now to be heard but wild cries from all, to the higher 
powers in which they trusted. Still, the sea heaved and 
the wind raged. Sorely to their distress, the supercar- 
goes of goods on board saw their wares thrown into the 
waves to lighten the ship, but even that did not bring 
safety. 

Meanwhile, Jonah had made his way to the lowest part 
of the ship, as most secret, and lay fast asleep, amidst all 
the wild tumult of nature and of his despairing fellow-men. 
His conscience had driven him to this gloomy solitude, 
and weary nature had yielded to a merciful reaction, in 
slumber, from the strain on his thoughts. At last the 
captain came upon him. " What did he mean," asked the 
sailor, " by lying there ? " Get up and call on your God ; 
perhaps He will think of us, and save us ; no others of the 
gods to whom we are all appealing seems to pay us any 
attention. Whether the prophet complied or not, the 
storm raged none the less. Something more must be done. 
What could have led the gods to send such a hurricane 
upon them ? There must be some one on board who had 
especially roused their anger ; and if they could find him 



JEROBOAM II. AND THE PROPHET JONAH. 211 

out, they might hope that the wrath of Heaven would be 
appeased, and the ship saved. They would cast lots, that 
they might know " for whose cause this evil " had come 
upon them. The lot fell on Jonah. What had he to say 
for himself ? w^hat was he ? of what country ? of what 
people ? " I am a Hebrew," said he, " and I fear Jehovah, 
the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land, 
and I am a guilty man ; for I have fled from His presence." 
They had found out the cause of their trouble, as they 
rightly thought ; but what was to be done ? Stout sea 
heroes as they were, they were " exceedingly afraid ; " for 
Jonah's story alarmed their superstitious minds beyond 
measure, especially as the sea grew more and more tempes- 
tuous. " Take me up to the deck, " said Jonah, " and throw 
me into the sea, and it will be calm ; for I know this great 
storm has come on you for my sake." 

But the honest fellows were loathe to take him at his 
word, and the poor rowers, at their different banks of oars, 
plied the long sweeps more earnestly than ever, — if, by 
any means, they could get back to the land. It was im- 
possible to make headway, however, and the ship seemed 
likely to founder. It appeared as if they must sacrifice 
Jonah, as he had himself proposed. Yet the fear of 
bringing fresh wrath on themselves, from above, if he were 
innocent, alarmed them. They were heathen, but they 
would make peace with Jonah's God, by telling Him their 
straits, before taking the final step. " We beseech Thee, 
Jehovah," cried out one, speaking for them all, " let us not 
perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent 
blood : for Thou, Jehovah, hast done as it pleased Thee," 
— the lot falling on this man, his own story, and the awful 
storm, tell us that it is sent on his account I 



212 JEROBOAM 11. AND THE PROPHET JONAH. 

Now, at last, Jonah was taken to the deck, and cast 
into the sea; and lo, it ''ceased from its raging." Awed 
by the sight, the crew, so wonderfully saved, at once re- 
turned thanks to Jehovah by killing a beast on the deck, 
as a sacrifice of grateful worship, and ^'owed to offer others 
as soon as they landed. But Jonah was not to perish. 
" The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah 
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and 
three nights." What kind of fish or sea creature it was, 
has been the subject of many conjectures. There are 
sharks which can swallow a man entire ; and they are not 
uncommon, we are told, in the Mediterranean. ISTaturalists 
tell us, moreover, that sharks have the power of throwing 
up again, whole and alive, the prey they have seized, 
though it is not said whether this is applicable to a case 
like that of the prophet. Darwin speaks of a "globe- 
fish," or diodon, being frequently found floating, alive and 
distended, in the stomach of a shark. But ail this does 
not really explain the incident of Jonah's preservation. 
It is, in fact, impossible to understand it, apart from mira- 
culous interference on his behalf; but the power which 
kept alive the "three children" in the burning fiery 
furnace was no less able to preserve the prophet in his 
strange prison-house. 



NINEVEH. 

In the time of Jeroboam IL, during whose reign Jonah 
lived, the terror of Assyria hung like a great war cloud, 
ominous and dark, over the nations of Western Asia. 
Syria trembled in the prospect of final overthrow ; 
Samaria was thankful to kiss the feet of the Great King, 
and purchase his forbearance by lavish tribute. Nineveh 
reigned, in its magnificence, on the far away Tigris, rich 
with the spoil of many nations. Fifteen hundred towers, 
each two hundred feet high, guarded walls round four 
cities, in a long quadrangle of sixty miles, rising to 
the height of a hundred feet, in such mighty strength, 
that even their top was a broad highway on which three 
chariots could drive abreast. Within the vast space 
thus enclosed, — three days' journey in their circuit, by 
the Jewish reckoning of twenty miles to a day, — rose 
palaces of almost inconceivable size and grandeur, amidst 
gardens and grounds, in which the highest art had created 
every beauty that could gratify pride or ravish the 
senses. Within the last generation, the grey mounds 
under which all their stones had for millenniums been 
buried, have yielded up remains of great buildings, 
sculptures, inscriptions, the contents of huge libraries, 
stamped on clay tablets, and much else, which have 
filled the civilised world with amazement. One palace 
alone, disclosed, in its ruins, by the toil of the explorer, 

213 



214 NINEVEH. 

revealed twenty-seven huge gates of entrance, guarded 
Ly colossal human-headed bulls and gigantic lions, and 
seventy-one halls and chambers, adorned throughout, 
round all their sides, by great squares of alabaster, covered 
with sculptures of the warlike deeds of the " king of 
kings" and varied scenes from civil or military life. 
These mighty structures are of various dates, but some 
of them were in their splendour in the days of Jonah. 
When it is remembered that the palaces stood on raised 
platforms of sun-dried brick, to add to their grandeur, 
and perhaps to their healthiness, it is hard to realise 
the expenditure of treasure, or of human labour, — the 
forced toil of innumerable prisoners of war and slaves, — 
which such piles of sun-dried brick involved. 

But palaces were not the only wonders of the different 
quarters, or rather cities, included in the general name 
of Mneveh. Vast temples, built in stages, each less 
in its square than the one below it, rose like mighty 
pyramids into the sky, their tops the supreme sanctuary 
of the god to whom, especially, the whole was dedicated, 
and also the lofty observatories from which consecrated 
observers of the heavens, watched and recorded the move- 
ments of the stars and planets, as signs of the future, 
for good or evil, to individuals and nations. In such a 
military capital there must, moreover, have been provision 
for a very numerous soldiery, whose pomp and glitter 
and resounding music, no doubt continually animated 
the scene. To secure the population, as far as possible, 
from the danger of famine, in case of war, vast spaces 
within the walls were devoted to tillage or pasture, 
which the distance between the several cities — enclosed, 
perhaps, within a common wall, though each itself 



NINEVEH. 215 

separately fortified — readily allowed. The population 
of the whole area was, for this reason, smaller than 
might have been expected, amounting, prol^ably, to less 
than a million, which, however, was a vast number for a 
city in ancient times. 

After his wonderful preservation, Jonah had no longer 
the waywardness to attempt flight from the presence 
of God, strange to us as such a thought in any case 
is ; but, having a second time been ordered to go to 
Nineveh, "arose, and went, according to the word of 
the Lord." It was a strange mission ; for the people 
of the great city could have no idea such as the Jew 
entertained of Jehovah, but must have shared the belief, 
common to all antiquity, that each local god had only 
local power, and could not interfere in the territory of 
another divinity. It appears, however, from the most 
recent studies, that as early, at least, as the ninth century 
before Christ, Jehovah was a name recognised and wor- 
shipped over Western Asia, far beyond Jewish bounds, 
as it is frequently found incorporated in Assyrian proper 
names, and also in those of other nations. Jonah would 
not, therefore, be proclaiming a strange god when he 
entered the gates of the Assyrian capital. 

Orientals are still impressed, more or less readily, 
by the appearance of "holy men," such as their own 
dervishes, whose enthusiasm in some cases, where high 
sincerity inspires them, is much like that which marks a 
true prophet in all ages. The name " dervish," Dr. Wolff 
tells us, means " one who hangs at the gate of God " 
awaiting his inspiration; and the ecstasy of some of 
the class may be compared to that of which we read, 
for example, in Micah, who, we are told, went about 



216 ^^^ NINEVEH. 

"stripped and naked, and howled like the jackals, and 
roared like the ostrich." I do not suppose that Jonah 
bore himself thus, but the fact that such appearances 
as those of Micah, were familiar over all Asia, must 
have opened the way for his influence in Nineveh. We 
may suppose him showing himself in such a garb as that 
of Elijah, or others of the prophets, — his hair streaming 
down his shoulders; his outer dress a rude sheepskin 
mantle. He may have arrived in the disastrous time 
after the death of Shalmaneser II., when the nations 
conquered by that great monarch, from the Euphrates 
to the Mediterranean, were, in most cases, in rebellion, 
and troubles oppressed the JSTineveh palaces. Wandering 
over the open spaces, with their mansions and huts, 
and through the lanes and bazaars of each pait of the 
city, he terrified the crowd by a piercing, monotonous 
wail, in a dialect which, though intelligible in a short 
sentence on the Tigris, must have sounded barbarous 
and uncouth, — "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
overthrown." His appearance proclaimed him "a holy 
man," and he might have been sent, in these dark times, 
by the gods. 

No community needed repentance more. Its splendour 
was the plunder of nations. Its pride and cruelty were 
proverbial. Its very religion was a consecration of im- 
purity. Day by day, as the prophet stalked through 
the streets, his terrifying words struck home to the 
popular conscience, and the alarm soon spread from 
the highway to the palace. The strange weird apparition 
and the cry, were told to the Great King in his sculptured 
halls, and he was only a man, like the humblest of his 
subjects. To him, also, the incident came like a voice 



NINEVEH. 217 

from the gods, and his superstitious, guilty soul was 
afraid. Humiliation, alone, he knew, could bring favour 
from above. Laying aside his gorgeously embroidered 
robes, and putting on coarse sacking, he prostrated himself 
before the Unseen, throwing ashes on his head, to show 
his sorrow and contrition. A solemn fast, moreover, 
was appointed, during which neither man nor beast 
should eat or drink. The people were also required to 
wear sackcloth, and even the beasts were to be wrapped 
in it, while all the population were to "cry mightily to 
God, and turn from their evil way, and. from the violence 
that was in their hands." How long this fit of penitence 
lasted is not told us ; but the history of Mneveh, after 
Jonah's day, shows that its better mood could not have 
continued very long. 



HOSE A. 

If the warnings, remonstrances, exhortations, and en- 
treaties of faithful preachers of righteousness could have 
reformed the northern kingdom, it would have repented 
of its evil ways and saved itself. Among these, Hosea, a 
native of JSTorth Israel, takes the foremost place. Ap- 
pearing toward the close of the reign of Jeroboam II., 
when the afterglow of prosperity under that monarch was 
beginning to fade away, he continued for sixty years to 
plead with his countrymen to cease to do evil and learn to 
do well. The wild confusion into which all things passed at 
Jeroboam's death, and the deepening wickedness of high 
and low, bore on the state, hopelessly, to its ruin. Civil 
wars, stained with cruel massacres, especially those of the 
two pretenders who rose in Gilead, Shallum, and Mena- 
hem ; ^ the darkening idolatry associated with the worship 
at Beth-aven — a place near Bethel — and of the high 
places of Gilgal, Shechem, and Gilead;^ the aggravation 
of internal disputes from the introduction of Assyria and 
Egypt, by the opposite factions, as allies in their feuds,^ — 
combined to precipitate the ruin of the land, and throw a 
dark light on the words of the prophet. 

Would that preachers in our own day showed his intense 

1 2 Kings XV. 10, 13, 14, 16 fif. 

2 Hos. iv. 15 ; vi. 8 ; vii. 7 ; x. 5, 15 ; xii. 11 ; xiii. 1, &c. 

3 Hos, V. 7 ; vii. 16 ; viii. 9 ; x. 6 ; xi. 5 ; xii. 1. 

218 



HOSEA. 219 

sympathy with their fellows, and were as brave and ear- 
nest in their exposure of the evils that are corrupting 
morality, social, commercial, and political ! He agonises 
over the decay of righteousness, and speaks with flaming 
indignation against the sins of the day, not in safe genera- 
lities, but in pointed and direct indictments, never losing 
confidence, amidst all, in the mighty love with which the 
Eternal watches for signs of penitence, that He may once 
more shine forth on man and bless him. Were such a 
preacher as Hosea to appear in each of our towns or cities, 
it may be that the desolating flood of indifference, ungod- 
liness, money worship, and vice, might be stayed. Abso- 
lutely unselfish self-sacrifice, for the love of God and man, 
made the prophet thus nobly faithful ; and the same brave 
and godly devotion would make men of his mould, now 
as then. 

The tenth chapter is the first part of one of Hosea's 
addresses on the one subject common to all his other dis- 
courses, — the corruption of his country and its imminent 
punishment. Let me give it, with sufficient expansion to 
make it more easily understood. " Israel," he cries, speak- 
ing, we may suppose, to some crowd in Samaria, " Israel, 
under Jeroboam II., had grown to be a luxuriant vine, 
hanging rich with fruit; but the more its fruit, and the 
greater its prosperity, the more its altars to false gods 
increased ; the richer the land, the richer its stately idols. 
The heart of the people is divided between them and 
Jehovah ; and they will, for this, be dealt with as guilty. 
God Himself will break down their altars and destroy 
their images. Then they will say, 'We have now no 
longer a king, since King Hosea has been taken from us, 
because we did not fear Jehovah ; and He is not our king, 



220 HOSEA. 

but our enemy. What can He help us ? '" But why, 
asks the preacher, has God forsaken them ? " I will tell 
you," says he. "It is because your rulers talk empty 
words, and swear false oaths, and make treaties to pay 
tribute, never intending to keep them, as Menahem did 
with Assyria ; ^ and for conduct like this, just punishment 
is even now preparing, like the springing up of hemlock 
in the furrows of your fields. And what will the ven- 
geance be ? Let me tell you. Ye inhabitants of Samaria 
have trusted in the heifer-image of Beth-aven, — 'the house 
of vanity.' You will lament for its loss, and its black- 
robed priests will tremble for grief and fear; for this, 
their glory, will be carried 'away as spoil by the foe. It 
will be carried off to Assyria, as a gift to the great Sargon.^ 
Shame will cover Ephraim, and Israel will blush for the 
counsel it followed, in bringing in Assyria and then defy- 
ing it. As for Samaria, her king has passed away like a 
chip upon a stream. The high places of Beth-aven will 
be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up 
over their altars. In that day men will cry to the moun- 
tains, ' Cover us ! ' and to the hills, ' Fall on us 1 ' 

" Israel ! thou hast sinned as much as Gibeah, from 
the days of its great transgression ; ^ but you have escaped 
hitherto : the battle of the tribes against the Benjamite 
children of iniquity did not overtake you, though you 
were, even then, as guilty. When it is My will," says 
Jehovah, " I shall chastise you, and the peoples shall be 

^ 2 Kings xvi. 7 ; xvii. 3. 

2 " Jareb," here and in Hosea v. 13, is thought to be a secret name for 
Sargon, as " Pul " is for Tiglath-pil eser. The prophecy, if this be correct, will 
belong to the interval of two and a half years between the capture of King 
Hosea by Shalmaneser, and the taking of Samaria by Sargon. Hosea x. 3, 7, 15, 
seems to corroborate this idea. Jareb means "Warlike King.' 

3 Judg. xix, ; Amos ix. 8. 



HOSEA. 221 

gathered against you, when you shall be bound, as cap- 
tives, because of your two transgressions, — your two idol 
calves of Bethel and Dan. Ephraim, victorious, under 
Jeroboam, over the nations round, has been like a heifer 
well trained for the threshing-floor, that takes pleasure in 
treading out the corn. But I will now lay a yoke on her 
fair neck ; I will make her do slavish field work ; Judah 
shall have to plough ; Jacob-Israel, to break the clods. If 
you wish to see better days, sow for yourselves righteous- 
ness, and you will, then, reap mercy. Break up your fal- 
low ground, your hard and barren soul, and sow it thus; 
for it is surely time for you to seek Jehovah, that He may 
come to teach you righteousness. Till now, you have 
ploughed in the seed of wickedness, and have, as your 
harvest, reaped iniquity, and eaten the fruit of your lying 
un worthiness. Because you have trusted in your chariots, 
and in the multitude of your mighty men of war, the 
shout of war shall rise against your tribes, and all your 
strongholds shall be destroyed, — as when Shalmaneser 
sacked Beth-arbel, in the day of battle ; when the mother 
was dashed from the walls after her children. Such 
things will your great wickedness at Bethel bring 
upon you; suddenly, as when one wakes in the break- 
ing of the morning, the king of Israel shall utterly be 
cut off." 

Shalmaneser IV. of Assyria (727-722 B.C.) invaded 
Palestine on his accession, in consequence of the omission 
of King Hosea of Samaria to pay the tribute due from 
Israel; and the storming of Beth-arbel may well have 
happened during this campaign. But there had been 
also, in the prophet's day, a JCing Shalman of Moab, 
tributary to Tigiath-pileser of Assyria; and he may 



222 HOSEA. 

have been the assailant of the unfortunate town. It is 
quite possible, however, that Shalman is a contraction 
for Shalmaneser. 

Such preaching as this tenth chapter of Hosea, or, 
indeed, as that of the prophets generally, is surely much 
needed in our own time ; for how much better is London 
or New York, in many respects, than Samaria ? 



''THE DRUNKARDS OF EPHRAIM^ 

DUEING the reign of Hezekiah, some time in the years 
immediately preceding the campaign of Shalmaneser 
against the northern kingdom, which ended in the fall of 
Samaria into the hands of his successor, Sargon, B.C. 7^2, 
the vices of the capital of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, 
or " Ephraim," drew from Isaiah of Jerusalem the strik- 
ing protest contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of 
the prophecies bearing his name, 

" Woe," cries the prophet (to Samaria), " to the crown 
of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, (woe to) the 
fading flower, his, (Ephraim's), glorious adornment, which 
is on the head of the fat valley of them that are over- 
come (or, ' smitten down ') by wine ! " ^ Samaria stood 
on an isolated green hill, rising from the bosom of a rich 
plain -surrounded by hills equally green, but with rounded 
tops higher than that of the height on which the city 
stood. Apparently secure on its well-fortified hill, it 
was to the northern kingdom, or Ephraim, like the 
garland on the head of one feasting, — the company at 
a carousal being always crowned with wreaths. In the 
deepening corruption which was bringing on its ruin, 
" Ephraim " had given itself up, more and more, to 

^ The Hebrew word translated "overcome" is used in Judg. v. 26 of Jael 
smiting Sisera's temples with the hammer and nail. The other texts in which 
it occurs are worth examining. They are : Judg. v. 22 ; Prov. xxiii. 35 ; 

Isa. xvi. 8 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 16 ; Ps. Ixxiv. 6 ; cxli. 5 ; Isa. xli. 7. 

223 



224 " THE DKUNKARDS OF EPHEAIM." 

reckless dissipation and profligacy ; Samaria, the capital, 
especially, exhibiting this demoralisation, so that, as the 
head and glory of the nation, it might fitly be associated 
with the general intemperance, too prevalent throughout 
the community as a whole. But, as in the case of other 
states in history, this triumph of strong drink was to 
be the ruin of the land. Weakened and made helpless 
by it, the kingdom would be trodden under foot by the 
Assyrian. Samaria would be to this terrible enemy as 
tempting as the first ripe fig to the passer-by who sees 
it, and as instantly and easily devoured. 

In the fifth verse, the people of the southern kingdom 
are addressed. In the day of " Ephraim's " trouble, 
Jehovah of hosts would be a glorious crown and fair 
diadem— the highest and most glorious, the jewel of the 
state — to Judah, which is thus promised permanence. 
Jehovah is its strong defence, which Samaria was not to 
Israel. For He will give an upright mind to the judges 
sitting on their tribunal at the gates, and strength to 
the fighting men, whose it was, to drive back the enemy 
to the gate of the town, from which he has issued to 
attack them. Yet they abo, like " Ephraim," need strong 
reform ; for they stagger through wine, and reel through 
strong drink. Their leaders, who should be their example, 
are indeed as bad as any, rivalling the drunkards of 
" Ephraim " in their excesses. IN'ot a few even of the 
priests and the prophets were a disgrace in this re- 
spect; for "they stagger through strong drink, they are 
swallowed up of wine ; they are drunk even when at 
their duties." " Prophets stagger while announcing their 
visions : priests reel as they give forth their oracles and 
legal judgments," — though the Law forbids their touching 



"THE DRUNKARDS OF EPHRAIM." 225 

wine when on duty.^ The very tables at which th ^.y sit 
and drink, witness against them ; for they are disgusting 
with drunken vomit : they are covered with it." 

As was natural, such men resented words so keenly 
honest and searching. " Whom," said they, in affected 
innocence, " would he (the prophet) thus teach know- 
ledge, and whom would he make to understand what he 
pretends to speak from God ? Are we babes just weaned 
from the milk, and taken from the breasts ? For he 
gives us command on command ; rule upon rule ; a word 
here, a word there." But Isaiah has his answer ready : 
" Yes, it shall be as you say. The same thing over and 
over ; God will still speak to this people ; but as they 
mock Him with their drunken stammering repetition of 
His words to them. He will speak to them^ with still 
worse, — with the stammering words and foreign tongue 
of the Assyrians. Hitherto He has told them their wise 
course, — the true rest to the weary land, and its refresh- 
ment ; but they would not hear. Henceforth His word 
to them will, indeed, be as they say, command on com- 
mand ; rule upon rule ; a word here and a word there ; 
but it will no longer save this people, but bring their 
merited punishment on them ; for they will not hear, but 
will keep on in their chosen evil ways ; the end being, 
that they will fall, and be ruined, and led away captive." 

Palestine was, in antiquity, famous for its vines and 
wine. There are ten different names in the Old Testa- 
ment for the vine, and twelve for wine, and at least 
ninety texts in which drunkenness and drinkiug are 
mentioned. Since the Mahommedan conquest, however, 
the growth of the vine, except for syrup or grapes, has 

1 Lev. X, 9 ; Ezek. xliv. 21. 



226 "THE DEUNKAKDS OF EPHRAIM." 

ceased, no one drinking wine but Christians or Jews, so 
that the vine is cultivated chiefly at Hebron in the south, 
and Lebanon in the north, by men of these two religions. 
I never saw a drunken person in the East, but neither, 
so far as I remember, have I seen one in Ital}^ the 
country of the vine, in our times ; whereas, in England, 
drunkenness is a national disgrace and curse. Each year 
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland drinks 
about a hundred and forty million pounds' worth of beer 
and other intoxicating liquors. 

Thank God, the moral cancer is not so deeply rooted 
or far spread, as it had become in Israel, before its fall ; 
but the fact that the prosperity of the country, through 
the conquests and strong rule of Jeroboam II., led to 
this decay in Israel, is full of significance. Goldsmith 
says : 

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; " 

and it is impossible that there should not be a great 
decline among nations w"ho waste such vast amounts on 
what leaves no equivalent, while it transfers to the 
pockets of a few what would have made a multitude 
happy. Thank God, there is not, in England, such ground 
for indictment of the religious teachers as Isaiah makes 
against the " priests and prophets " of Judah. Morality 
is higher among us in this particular, thougli there have 
been times, when even Christian teachers have been far 
below" the standard of to-day, as regards temperance. 

To me, however, it seems a very poor thing that a 
public servant of Christ, in whatever section of the 
Church, should content himself with the negative vii^tue 



"THE DEUNKAEDS OF EPHRAIM." 227 

of keeping from excess. He deserves no credit for it. 
Apart from principle, he cannot afford to be intemperate. 
Public opinion would insist on his retirement, and that 
would mean social and pecuniary ruin. But is this 
enough ? Is he to content himself with moderate in- 
dulgence, in any form, in that which, year by year, 
brings ruin on multitudes of those for whom his Master 
died ? In my parish in Norwich I found that about 
every third house was desolated by drink. Men were 
imbruted, ay, and women as well, in too many cases ; 
children were half fed ; misery in every shape was let 
loose. 

The heart bleeds for the sufferings this vice brings on 
the community, not to speak of the neglect of religion 
it involves ; neglect so utter, that the public-houses have 
practically stamped out Christianity in some parishes. 
Even in the waste of capital it occasions, drinking is 
terrible in its results. A fine woman, who was working 
at a loom in her wretched house, told me, — in answer to 
my inquiry why she, a wife with a family, needed to 
toil in this way, when she had a husband earning good 
wages,— that, out of a guinea and a half which he got in 
the week, he gave her only eight or nine shillings. An 
iron-puddler in Northumberland told me he earned four 
pounds a week, but had nothing by Tuesday night. It 
all went, he said, in treating the men who were for the 
time in the public-house ; his fuddled brain being unable 
to realise what he was doing, till the enforced sobriety 
of an empty pocket restored his senses. A very popular 
English politician has justly said, that drink causes more 
evil than war, pestilence, and famine together. 

One reminiscence of the tragedies drink creates, may 



228 "THE DEUNKARDS OF EPHEAIM." 

close this paper. In a rude outpost of civilisation in 
Canada, I was once summoned to bury a young man 
who had died of drinking, in a wretched " grog-shop." 
There was nothing by which to discover his name or 
English address ; but he evidently was a gentleman. No 
burial-place had, as yet, been set apart in the neighbour- 
hood, and the question of finding a spot in which to lay 
him, was only solved by a farmer offering a grave in 
his orchard. There, among the fruit-trees, I read the 
service over the poor fellow; but, as no one could tell 
who he was, or whence he came, I was not able to write 
to his friends, to let them know his end. Some tender 
mother, it may be, or broken-hearted father, far away, 
was wondering what had become of the boy who once 
promised so fairly ; but they could never learn anything 
of his fate. He had simply vanished out of life,— one 
more victim of the drinkseller. 



AMOS. 

The Hebrew prophets were drawn from all classes of 
society. Isaiah of Jerusalem belonged to the higher, 
Amos to the humbler, ranks of the people. Part of the 
year he tended flocks on the uplands round Tekoa, just 
below Bethlehem, in Judea; another part of it, he was 
earning a poor living by cutting open the coarse figs of 
the sycamore, used by the lowly as food ; puncture of the 
rough fruit being needed, to let out a bitter juice, and 
thus make it eatable. He was, in fact, only a hard-work- 
ing peasant, with no advantages of professional training ; 
modestly owning that he was neither a prophet nor a ' son ' 
of the prophets.^ 

The northern kingdom, in the days of Amos, was sink- 
ing ever lower in the tone of its public and private life, — 
largely, we may imagine, from the corrupting influences, 
on an irreligious community, of the great prosperity 
enjoyed under the able and victorious reign of Jeroboam 
II. Samaria was filled with the spoils of war and the 
profits of a wide commerce. The humble dwellings of 
sun-dried brick, which had contented men hitherto, were 
replaced largely by houses of hewn stone ; and in not a 
few mansions, the walls of the finer chambers were covered 
with a plating of thin ivory, brought from Africa by the 
Phoenicians ; couches and furniture of this costly material 

1 Amos i. 1 ; vii. 14, 1.5. 
•229 



230 AMOS. 

being also more or less common. ' Nor was a single house 
enough for the wealthy ; they must have one for the cold, 
and another for the hot, season, amidst pleasant vineyards, 
on the slopes of the round hills.^ 

But, as wealth accumulated, the state sank. The 
heathenism around men affected general morality; nor 
had the Baal- worship of the time of Ahab been without 
its abiding influence on the community. Town and 
country were, alike, filled with those who had fought 
under Jeroboam II., and, in doing so, had learned the 
morals of the camp. The poor grew daily poorer, the 
rich more wealthy. Drunkenness and debauchery spread 
apace. ^ " The drunkards of Ephraim " became a phrase 
as far off as Jerusalem. Even the priest and the prophet, 
as we have seen, went to their ministrations stupid through 
strong drink, and guests drank to an offensive excess at 
table. ^ The very women were given to their cups.'* 
Greed for money, to support this sensual indulgence, went 
to fearful lengths. Judges, duly bribed, gave honest men 
into slavery for so small a debt as the price of a pair of 
sandals.^ Instead of giving back, in the evening, as the 
Law required, the upper garment, in which the poor man 
lay down at night to sleep, but which he had been forced, 
through want, to pledge, the usurer kept it, to spread on 
his own couch, at his carousals in the house of his god, 
where he and his like feasted on the flesh of their sacri- 
fices, washed down with wine got by extortion or violence.^ 
In their rich mansions, maintained by the oppression of 
their poor neighbours, men lay, garlanded and anointed, 

' 1 Kings xxii. 39 ; Amos iii. 11, 15. ^ Hos. iv. 11. 

3 Isa. xxviii. 1, 6, 7. '^ Amos iv. 1. Hitzig. 

5 Amos ii. 0. Scbmoller, Hitzig-. 

8 Exod. xxii. 25, 2G ; Amos. ii. 8. Hitzig. 



AMOS. 231 

on couches of ivory, at their feasts, while music murmured 
through sthe hall, and wine, no longer mixed with equal 
parts of water, as had been the custom of old times, was 
dispensed from huge jars. 

Such splendour could only be maintained by wrong- 
doing. The toiling peasant had to give up a large part of 
his grain, while those who had to buy, were cheated by 
false weights and measures, and fleeced by shameful prices 
even for refuse wheat. Men had to pledge their clothes, 
and even their freedom, for a bit of bread.^ No wonder 
that, in such a state of things, the prophets could say, 
that no truth, or mercy, or knowledge of God, was left in 
the land, and that swearing, lyhig, homicide, stealing, 
adultery, housebreaking, and frequent murders, were rife. 

The roads were unsafe ; robbers went about in bands, 
and even the higher classes and the priests were parties 
to the worst crimes.^ 

Amos made his first public appearance two years before 
the great earthquake in Uzziah's reign, when Jeroboam IT. 
had been on the throne fifteen years, in Samaria. Living 
south of Jerusalem, he felt divinely impelled to go to 
Bethel, the headquarters of the corrupt worship of the 
northern kingdom, to witness against the sins of Israel. 

There was, indeed, much to assail, even in religious 
matters. The temple at Bethel boasted a high-priest, 
with numerous clergy, much better endowed than the 
priests of Judea ; and the king, who worshipped at Bethel 
when there, had a palace in its neighbourhood.^ Samaria 
and Gilgal had set up local calf images of their own.* A 

1 Amos ii. G-8 ; v. 11 ; vi. 4-fi ; viii. 4-6. 

2 Hos. iv. 1, 2; V. 1, 2 ; vi. 9. 3 Amos vii. 1.3. 

•* Amos iv. 4; v. 5 ; vii. 13; viii. 14; Hos. viii. 5; x. 5 ; xii, 11. 



232 AMOS. 

temple to Asherab, which had remained from Jezebel's 
day in Samaria, was reopened.^ Silver and gold images 
of Baal were set up.^ The impurities of heathenism once 
more reigned.^ 

It was natural, therefore, that Amos should denounce 
such varied evils, if, by any means, he might rouse the 
people to repentance and a better life. His prophecy 
opens with denunciations of the sins of the communities 
around, — Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Amnion, and Moab, 
— and dark hints are thrown out, of the punishment in 
store for them, for their wickedness, if they continued in 
it. The way was thus cleared, for his applying the same 
rule of God's government to his own people. Judah, 
having once and again offended, would, assuredly, not 
escape, if she did not change her course. Having thus 
indicted his own kingdom, he was able to turn to Israel, 
and address its people in the same strain. The whole 
prophecy is, henceforward, a continuous reproof of the 
offences of the northern kingdom. 

1 2 Kings xiii. 6 ; Hos. ii. 13. 2 Hos. ii. 8. 

^ Hos. iv. 13-15 ; ix. 15 ; xii. 11 ; Amos iv. 4. 



THE MESSAGE OF AMOS, 

When Amos was delivering his stern message to the 
northern kingdom, it was in the height of prosperity, for 
its king, Jeroboam 11.,^ had spread its bounds, as you will 
remember, from the far north, at Hamath, on the Orontes, 
in Coele-Syria, to the south end of the Dead Sea, reigning 
triumphantly over this great territory, which stretched 
out both east and west of the Jordan valley.^ To outward 
appearance, Israel had entered on the full summer of its 
fortune, with no hints of any but a splendid future. Was 
not wealth abundant ? Was not the government strong 
and wisely administered ? To speak of approaching ruin 
and disaster was like threatening a storm under a cloud- 
less sky. To keener eyes, however, the specks which told 
of decay within, were visible on the fair surface. The 
righteousness that gives strength to a nation was wanting. 
Selfish luxury, unprincipled greed, lawless and unbridled 
immorality, marked all classes. Might was right, to the 
strong. The priests were drunken and worthless. The 
rich were equally dissipated. The judges took bribes ; 
and, in business affairs, to overreach a neighbour, or to 
force him to a bad bargain, was as it should be. The 
religion of a people may always be exactly tested by 
their commercial morality. When honesty and truth 
are wanting between man and man, the most flaming 

1 Amos vii. 10. 2 2 Kings xiv. 25, 28. 

233 



234: THE MESSAGE OF AMOS. 

profession of orthodoxy is only the white outside of a 
moral sepulchre. 

Among the few who, looked thoughtfully at things 
around them, and saw all this prevailing in the rich, 
prosperous, northern kingdom, was Amos — " the hurden- 
bearer" — who had come to Bethel, from his lowly calling 
on the pastoral uplands of Judah, to deliver his soul 
respecting it. With a grand bravery he had even gone 
to Bethel itself, when Jeroboam was in his palace there, 
and had not only denounced the calf worship and the 
moral shortcomings of the community, but had told the 
crowds of worshippers, who would be sure to spread his 
words through the whole kingdom, that Jehovah was 
wroth with it for its sins, and woidd make desolate its 
high places on the hill-tops, where it worshipped, and 
lay waste its temples of Bethel, Gilgal, Samaria, and 
Dan ; nay, more, — that he would rise against the house 
of Jeroboam with the sword, and that the king himself 
would die by violence, while, as to Israel, it woidd surely 
be led away captive out of its own land.^ 

Such darincr fidelitv reminds one of that of the dervish 
who told the Sultan, to his face, that the country was 
sunk in wickedness, and that, as in fish, the corruption 
began at the head.. Both dervish and prophet, however, 
remained unmolested ; for, in the East, a man who speaks 
with what is 'believed or feared to be a Divine commission, 
is too sacred a person to be touched even by kings. Like 
other ambassadors, the representative of the most high 
God is inviolable, except when a gust of popular fury 
overpowers this reverence for a moment. Amaziah, the 
high priest of Bethel, could bear the denunciation of the 

1 Amos vii. 9-11. 



THE MESSAGE OF AMOS. 235 

country, but hastened to report to Jeroboam the treasou 
of Amos against himself, though the only result was a 
contemptuous order, through the priest, that the offender 
should take himself off to Judah again, whence he came, 
and get his living, and prophesy there. He must leave 
Bethel; for it was the national sanctuary and the king's 
temple. 

Amos, however, was not to be silenced. Fifty years 
were to pass, after the death of Jeroboam, before the 
cup of iniquity of the northern kingdom was full ; but 
he saw it, through that long vista, brimmed at last, and 
held to the lips of Samaria, to drain to the last dregs. " I 
was sent," replied he, " Amaziah, to Israel, not Judah. 
Nor did I dream of coming till thus driven to do so by 
God ; for I am neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, 
but only a herdman, and a cutter of sycamore figs. Thus 
sent, 1 must speak," And so, once more, he broke out 
with his gloomy denunciations and warnings. " You try 
to silence me," said he to the high functionary, wdio thus 
sneeringly ordered him off — " I tell you what your fate 
will be. Your wifejwill be a harlot in the city, and your 
sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your 
estates will be divided among foreigners sent to occupy 
the country, and you yourself will die in a heathen land, 
and your bones will lie, unburied, on unholy earth, and 
Israel shall surely go forth into captivity." He then con- 
tinued, addressing the crowd : " The Lord God showed me 
a basket of summer fruit, which you call ' kaitz.' And He 
said, ' Amos, what do you see ? ' And I said, ' A basket 
of kaitz.' Then said Jehovah to me, 'The "ketz" — that 
is, the end — is come upon my people Israel. I will not 
again forgive them any more. And the songs of the 



236 THE MESSAGE OF AMOS. 

palace ^ will be turned into bowlings for tbe dead in tbat 
day, saitb tbe Lord God ; for tbe dead will lie tbick in 
every place. Men will cast out tbeir bodies, to lie, un- 
buried, in tbe silent desolation tbat will reign. Hear tbis, 
ob 1 ye wbo bunt down tbe needy, to eat tbem up ! You 
can scarcely wait till tbe bigb days, sucb as tbe new 
moons, are over, on wbicb tbere is no buying, to sell your 
corn, or for tbe Sabbatb to pass, tbat you may bring out 
your wbeat from your granaries to sell it ; and to rob tbe 
poor, you make your measure small, and put a beavy price 
on tbe grain ; wbile, to crown all, you use false weigbts. 
Tbus you buy tbe poor, as slaves, for silver, and tbe needy 
for a pair of sboes, making bim a slave for tbe smallest 
debt. Yes, tbe very tailings of your wbeat, wbicb men 
tbrow out, you sell dearly. Jebovab bas sworn, by tbe 
glory of Israel, tbat He will surely never forget any of 
your works, tbus vile. Tbe land will certainly tremble 
for tbis, and all its population will mourn. As tbe Mle- 
flood rises and tben sinks again, so sball a flood of Divine 
indignation swell up over your land, rising awfully, and 
sinking again, wben you are swept away. Tbat day sball 
be one of darkness and lamentation. It will be like tbe 
gloom of tbe great ear tb quake, in tbe days of Uzziab. 
Your feasts will be turned into mourning, and your songs 
into lamentation ; and you will clotbe yourselves in sack- 
clotb, in your agonising sorrow, boping, by penitence, to 
turn away God's judgments, but boping in vain ; and you 
will sbave your beads as in tbe greatest calamities, and tbe 
mourning over tbe land will be like tbat for an only son, 
and it will end as a bitter day. You despise my message 
now, but, in tbose days, I will send a famine of my word 

1 Amos yi. 5. 



THE MESSAGE OF AMOS. 237 

on the land. You will then no more hear it, though you 
were to wander after it over the whole country. Misery 
will burst upon the nation. The fair virgins and the 
strong young men, so well nourished till then, will faint 
for thirst ; and those who swear by the calf of Samaria, 
and say, " As thy god liveth, Dan," and by the joys of 
the pilgrimage to " Beersheba," shall fall and never rise 
up again.' " 



FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

Nations sink only slowly to their fall, and always from 
internal corruption, rather than violence from w^ithoiit. 
The word " religion " means " to bind fast," or " to bind 
back," to bind fast to right, and back from wrong; and 
all history vindicates the deep truth of its claim to do 
both, for nations as well as individuals. Without prin- 
ciple, men are wolves, preying on each other ; their lower 
nature riots in sensuality and all vicious indulgence, till 
the community they form sinks, under moral exhaus- 
tion, decay, and corruption. It was so in Israel. It was 
founded on violence, when firm but peaceful determination 
would have secured the reforms for which it revolted ; it 
made religion a political plaything, and even accepted 
from its kings whatever heathenism they chose to intro- 
duce. Might, from the first, was right ; steady develop- 
ment was precluded by repeated revolutions ; ill-gotten 
wealth debauched the rich, and aided them in plundering 
the weaker and poorer, till, at last, after the strong hand 
of Jeroboam II. was removed, things passed into a welter- 
ing chaos of internal strife between the factions of rival 
pretenders. 

King Zechariah followed Jeroboam, to perish within a 
3"ear ; Shallum succeeded, to be overthrown and murdered 
in a month. Then came Menahem, a man of Gad, from 



•238 



FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 239 

the other side of the Jordan, a mere adventurer, who 
seems to have managed to keep his position for nine 
years. ]N"ext rose Pekahiah, his son, to be murdered, 
after two years, by Pekah, the captain of his body-guard, 
who maintained himself through twenty more years of 
violence, lawlessness, and war. 

Finally, after his murder, came the last king of Samaria, 
Ploshea, the creature of Tiglath-pileser 11. of Assyria, to till 
the throne for the nine years before the final catastrophe. 
Plotting with the Egyptian king. So, to shake off the yoke 
of the Assyrian monarch, Shalmaneser lY., he drew on 
his country an invasion from Nineveh, during which he 
was taken prisoner and carried off. Samaria was besieged 
and taken, after Shalmaneser s death, by Sargon ; the 
kino-dom blotted out ; o;overnors from Nineveh set over 
the land ; its people deported to the regions of the Tigris, 
and bodies of heathen immigrants transplanted, from 
their various conquered homes, to take the place of the 
Hebrews swept into exile. Their future countries were 
various, some being settled in Halah, apparently some- 
where in the region of Haran, where Abraham had lived ; 
others, in the wild mountains of the country of the 
Medes, east of the Tigris ; and still others, elsewhere. 
To replace them, bodies of settlers were brought to the 
vacant districts of Israel, from Babylon, from Cuthah, 
a town of Babylonia, where, in keeping with the Scrip- 
ture narrative, a temple of Nergal has been found ; 
from Ava, a Babylonian, or, possibly, a Syrian town ; 
from Hamath, on the Orontes ; and from Sepharvaim, in 
Babylonia. 

It must not be supposed, however, that the wide bounds 
of the northern kingd(jm were depopulated ; for Sar"()n 



240 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

tells ITS, in his annals, that the number of prisoners he 
carried off was only 27,280. It would seem, therefore, 
that he led away, at least at the capture of Samaria, only 
those actively compromised against him ; the unfortunate 
city being, in fact, treated much as Jerusalem was here- 
after to be, by ^Nebuchadnezzar, in the reign of Jehoia- 
chin. Parts of the country would undoubtedly be left un- 
peopled by the ravages of war, so terrible in those ages ; 
but the common people must have been left behind in 
great numbers, if only to pay tribute to Assyria, since 
it could not have been raised from a desert, while the 
foreign settlers would need years, before they were able 
to contribute to the revenue. 

It would seem, however, that successive colonies of 
foreigners were sent to the northern kingdom, at inter- 
vals ; for Sargon tells us that, at one time, he sent to it 
people from Arabia Petrsea, and other regions of which 
the very names are now unknown, and, at another, that 
he sent still other bands from six different parts, respect- 
ing one of which, " the land of Bari," he says, that " even 
the learned have not hitherto known of it." A passage 
in Ezra, moreover, seems to imply that there was a still 
further colonising of portions of Israel, at a much later 
time ; probably in consequence of some attempted revolt. 
It took place in the time of Esarhaddon, who reigned 
from B.C. 681 to B.C. 669 ; his son Asnappar, or Assur- 
banipal, settling a number of Elamites, some from Susa, 
in the northern kingdom, with additional bands from 
Babylon and Erech.^ We may assume that each of these 
transplantations of foreigners to the old territory of Israel, 
implies a corresponding deportation of Hebrew prisoners 

1 Ezra iv. 2-10. 



FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 241 

to Assyrian provinces in the East during at least fifty or 
sixty years, leaving the Hebrew population still remaining 
in Northern Palestine, to become more and more of mixed 
blood, from intermarriage with the successive bodies of 
immigrants, who, though heathen, were, for the most 
part, of the same Semitic race as the Jews, and therefore 
easily mingled with. them. 

The foreign elements thus introduced into the country 
gave an overwhelming preponderance to idolatry, when 
added to the influence of Phoenicia, whose people were 
settled on every part of the land where trade could be 
pursued, and whose own nation was the wealthiest and 
most powerful in the Levant. The northern Hebrews, 
always lax, as a whole, in their fidelity to the old religion 
of their race, as shown in their worship of the calves, and 
their wide apostasy to Baal and Ashtoreth worship, under 
Ahab and his successors, no doubt would succumb, to a 
large extent, to the new influences which surrounded 
them. The men of Cuthah, the great necropolis city of 
Chaldea, would make them familiar with the worship of 
Nergal, " the lion god," their local idol. Those from 
Hamath worshipped Ashima, possibly, though not pro- 
bably, the Phoenician goat-headed god Esmun. The Avites 
bowed down to the dog-headed god Nibhaz and to Tartak, 
apparently an embodiment of the principle of evil. The 
men of '' the two Sipparas " — in Hebrew, Sepliarvaim — 
boasted of their town being the " city of sun worship," 
and, in keeping with the awful rites of some forms of this 
idolatry, burned their children alive to Adrammelech, or 
Adar-Malik, " Adar is king," who, elsewhere, is called 
Chiun and Moloch,^ and bore, among his titles, that of " the 

1 Amos V. 26. 



242 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

lord of fire/' represented under the form of a bull with 
wings and a human head. With this idol they joined 
Anammelech, " Ann is king," a figure of a man dressed 
in a fish-skin to his waist, over inner robes, and hence 
called, among other names, " the fish god," to whom 
also their children were offered by fire ; apparently a 
reminiscence of Oannes, the half divine being who had 
come over the sea to the Euphrates, and had civilised 
its nations. The men of Babylonia, again, paid homage 
to Succoth Benoth, or " Sakkut-binutu," a name for 
Merodach, the planet Mercury, as the " chief ruler of 
the uni^'erse." 

Xo wonder, therefore, if the knowledge of Jehovah died 
out so grievously, that the poor wild creatures sent to the 
northern kingdom, finding it slow work to reduce the 
wilderness made by war, to its former cultivation, and 
suffering under the consequent increase of wild beasts, 
petitioned the King of Assyria to send them priests, who 
mighc teach them the worship of Jehovah, since, as the 
rightful local God, in their opinion. He only would be able 
to protect them. 

Of the portion of the ten tribes carried away to the 
East, history says nothing, but it is very striking to notice 
that the population of Galilee, at a later time, was so 
purely Jewish as to be accepted as brethren, even by the 
rigidly narrow people of Judah. It would seem as if, 
from time to time, especially after the destruction of 
Mneveh, in B.C. 609, the best of the ten tribes, faithful, 
among the faithless, to the God of their fathers, had made 
their way back to the Galilean hills, and thus uncon- 
sciously fulfilled the prophecy that their tribes wc/uld 
indeed return to the land of Israel. In the case of Judah, 



FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 243 

similar prophecies were regarded as fulfilled when a very 
small proportion of the Babylonian exiles returned to 
Jerusalem ; and it seems only fitting that we should apply 
the same rules to the return of so large a number of the 
northern tribes. 



RETROSPECT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

There is still a little band of lepers " outside the gate" at 
Samaria; that is, outside the village, for there are no 
gates now, though the remains of at least one still show 
the bounds of the ancient city at that particular spot. 
The hill on which the old capital stood rises about four 
hundred feet above the undulating green plain, five or six 
miles across, in the middle of which it rises ; but there is 
nothing left of its early splendour, though some relics of 
its greatness under Herod are still to be seen. The popu- 
lation have so poor a reputation that my tent had to be 
protected by a watchman through the night, to guard it 
from thieves or robbers. As to the past, they know 
nothing; for I sat on the ground a long time, talking 
with a number of the chief men about the history of their 
town, and they listened with all the curiosity that greets 
a story never before heard. 

It has seen strange and terrible times. Shortly after 
its being built by Omri, it seems to have been besieged 
by Ben-hadad I., with the result of his securing a quarter 
in it for his people, settled there as traders. Under Ahab, 
Ben-hadad 11. besieged it ; and it was a third time be- 
sieged under Joram, by Ben-hadad III. ; the citizens 
holding out through the agonies of an awful famine, from 
which the retreat of the Syrians, panic-struck by ima- 
ginary dangers, delivered them. It is now 2614 years 

2H 



RETEOSPECT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 245 

since it was stormed by the Assyrians, under Sargon, 
after a three years' investment; the northern kingdom 
ending with its fall. 

Beyond the good in his name, which means " Jehovah 
is he," I can see very little in Jehu. His service to the 
national faith was, beyond question, due to his ambition 
as much as to his principles ; and it was effected through 
treason, deceit, and the most heartless bloodthirstiness. 
If it were necessary to murder his king and Jezebel, what 
reason but the Eastern policy of exterminating all possible 
rivals, could justify his massacre of Ahab's family ; while, 
as to his slaughter of the defenceless multitude of wor- 
shippers of Baal, whom his hypocrisy tempted to their 
doom, — it was a very poor way to advance the interests 
of religion. The prophet Hosea, indeed, nearly a century 
and a half later, shows how deep the horror at his cruelty 
had sunk into the national mind ; for he introduces 
Jehovah as declaring that He " will avenge the blood of 
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu." ^ 

The people of Mneveh were, no doubt, familiar v/ith 
"holy men" very much like the Hebrew prophets, and 
thus would be open to impression from the solemn words 
of Jonah, as he paced through their streets in the sheep- 
skin cloak and the rude dress of his order. "The prophets," 
says Dr. Wolff, " were dervishes in dress, style, and actions. 
They strip and go naked, like Isaiah and Micah ; they sit 
at the gate, are consulted by kings, wrap themselves in 
their mantles in deep contemplation, and, like Elijah, will 
answer, ' I am filled with zeal for God ; ' or, 'I think of 
the time when the Eestorer of all things will come, when 
the wolf and the lamb will lie down together.'" It is 

1 Hos. i. 4. 



246 EETEOSPECT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

thus easy to realise the effect of Jonah on a superstitious 
Oriental population. 

The mound left by the huge mass of the ancient walls 
of Mneveh runs in a rude parallelogram, or rather trape- 
zoid, with its front touching the banks of the Tigris at 
the two ends, but it does not enclose a space " of three 
days' journey " across, which must be intended by the 
words, " Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey." 
Khorsabad to the north, and Mmroud, the ancient Calah, 
to the south, though associated with Nineveh, were not, 
so far as can be seen, joined to it by any fortifications ; 
but the wide space between these points, and behind 
Nineveh proper, may have been covered with houses, 
built amidst gardens, fields, vineyards, and open spaces, 
giving ample breadth for the three days' slow advance of 
the prophet. 

An eminent traveller lately returned from Asia informs 
me that the city of Teheran is no less than twenty-four 
miles across, and that Erzeroum is twenty-two miles in 
breadth; vegetable gardens, open spaces for the camels 
lying down, and other intervals without houses, taking up 
quite a large share of these wide limits. It is thus easy 
to think how Mneveh could be three days' journey across. 

The notice, by Amos, of the rains being withheld, is not 
unfrequently illustrated in Palestine. In 1888 the sur- 
face of the Lake of Tiberias was five feet lower in April 
than it had been in February, from the failure of the 
" latter rains," The Jordan, as it flows out of the lake, 
was only knee-deep, where in March there had been a 
depth of six and a half feet. The springs throughout 
Galilee, and especially in the district of Tiberias, ran very 
low, many drying up altogether, so that the large town of 



RETROSPECT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 247 

Lubieh, and the town of Nimrin, were forced to get their 
water supply, from the previous September, at the power- 
ful spring of Hattin, four miles from the one, and two 
from the other. At Nazareth, the want of drinking-water 
was severely felt, and not a drop was left for the irrigation 
of the gardens. Foreigners, who were not fortunate enough 
to have friends, found nobody to water their animals, even 
for money. This helps us to realise the terror of the pro- 
spect held out to the northern kingdom, by the pro^ohet. 

The general corruption of the richer class in Israel, de- 
nounced by the preachers of the day, of whom Hosea and 
Amos were only two, out of we know not how great a 
number, was the inevitable result of the accumulation of 
wealth in a few hands, in a limited and poor territory ; 
but the shameless want of heart displayed, could only 
have been possible in a very disorganised community. To 
make bread so dear that men sold themselves as slaves to 
get it, is a height of wickedness recorded against the 
moneyed class both of Israel and Judea ; for, in the time 
of Nehemiah, the usurers of Jerusalem enslaved the 
humbler citizens by the same infamous system of ex- 
tortion. 

Political instability was the tap-root of the misfortunes 
of the northern kingdom. Eevolution followed revolution, 
each marked by social convulsions, and each bringing for- 
ward new swarms of needy adventurers, under whom the 
land was, at last, utterly exhausted. Such a state of affairs 
would not, however, have been possible, had the popu- 
lation been less sunken than they were ; and that they 
were so degraded as to go after Baal, and multiply altars, 
was assuredly, in great measure, the fault of priest and 
prophet, who should have taught the masses higher ideah; 



248 RETROSPECT OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 

and more self-respect. It is no wonder, therefore, that, 
while the true prophets denounce the rich and the violent, 
they no less condemn the priest and the prophet, who 
had fallen from their high estate, as true and diligent 
ministers of ricrhteousness and instructors of the nation. 

The captivity of the northern tribes knew no formal and 
corporate " return " like that of Judah from Babylon ; but 
it appears certain that the population of Galilee, which, 
in the strictest Jewish times, was recognised as of true 
Hebrew blood, consisted, originally, of members of the 
Ten Tribes, who made their way back to the green hills 
of Northern Palestine, perhaps after the downfall of 
Nineveh, about B.C. 609. 

The religious decay in Judah under the usurper Atha- 
liah, must have been very grave, to lead to such selfish 
inertness in repairing the Temple buildings, when the 
young Joash and the High Priest Jehoiada intrusted its 
repair to the priests and Levites. The Church was evi- 
dently as much tainted by the spirit of the age as the 
laity. It is striking, indeed, to notice how continually 
we find, in the history of the Jewish states of Judah and 
Israel, the need of some strong personality to rouse them 
from social, political, or religious degeneracy. Prophets, 
priests, and people seem, alike, to have been low in tone, 
as a rule, with illustrious exceptions ; for the faithful men 
whose testimony we still have, are very pronounced in 
their denunciation of the bulk of all classes in their day. 



ATHALIAH. 

As the marriage of Charles I. to Henrietta Maria of 
France brought untold trouble on England, that of Omri's 
son, Ahab, to Jezebel, of Tyre, was disastrous in the 
extreme to the Hebrew race. It seemed a grand match, 
since it brought Israel into close relations with the richest 
state of Palestine ; but the introduction of Phoenician 
idolatry into the northern kingdom, to please the new 
queen, was a ruinous price to pay for material advantages. 
Worse still, Jehoshaphat of Judah, personally true-hearted 
to Jehovah, was weak enough, for policy, to arrange a 
marriage of his son and destined successor, Jehoram, with 
Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, — a women as un- 
scrupulous, ambitious, and fanatically devoted to the 
Tyrian worship, as her mother had shown herself. Clever, 
resolute, and remorselessly energetic in carrying out her 
aims, she dominated Jehoram's weaker nature, as Jezebel 
had lorded it over that of Ahab. It was at her instiga- 
tion, we may suppose, that the reign of her husband was 
inaugurated by the massacre of his brothers, or half- 
brothers, and a number of other unfortunates, supposed 
to favour them. David had been anything but merciful 
to the house of Saul, Solomon had the blood of Adonijah 
and Joab on his hands, though, indeed, they had only 
followed imperfectly the practice of the kings round, and 
Abimelech, the first pretender to the throne of Israel, 

2.19 



250 ATHALIAH. 

killed all the sons of Gideon to secure his position ; while 
Jehu was, before long, to carry out the same cruel rule, 
by a wholesale massacre of the princes of both Israel and 
Judah. It had, in fact, for ages, been the custom in 
Oriental monarchies, and it has continued to be so till our 
own day in some of them. 

The throne thus established, though each step was wet 
with blood, Athaliah, following the example of her mother, 
proceeded to introduce the gods of her beloved Tyre, into 
Judah ; Jehoram remaining, like Ahab, in the same cir- 
cumstances, weakly passive. High places to Baal and 
Ashtoreth rose in the towns,^ and heathenism threatened 
to cover the land, though, as yet, the worship of Jehovah 
was condescendingly permitted in the Temple. So weak 
a reign, however, showed its results in many ways. Edom, 
subject to Judah, revolted, and won its independence, 
after Jehoram had been nearly cut off in attempting to 
subdue it. The Philistines won back Libnah and Gath, 
and, in alliance with Arabs from the south, invaded 
Judah, carrying ofi' many of the people as slaves, and 
much plunder, besides capturing all the royal family 
and the royal harem ; one only of David's blood escaping, 
— Jehoahaz, afterwards known as Aliaziah.^ l^o wonder 
that, when Jehoram died, his body was refused admission 
to the royal tombs. 

Ahaziah, on mounting the throne, found himself king 
only in name ; for Athaliah, his mother, practically 
usurped all power. A temple to Baal was raised by 
her in, or near, Jerusalem, in part from the stones of 
Solomon's Temple, which had been more or less broken 

/ ^2 Cbron. x^i. 1-11. 

■^ 2 Kings viii. 20-22 ; 2 Chron. sxi. 8-10. 



ATHALIAH. 251 

down to obtain them ; ^ and it had its altars, images, and 
staff of priests and helpers, under a high priest called 
Mattan. The idolatry of Tyre, patronised by the crown, 
became the fashion with the upper classes of Judah, and 
the people were not slow to imitate them. 

Ahaziah and no fewer than forty-two of the huge royal 
family having, however, been slain by Jehu, Athaliah 
found herself still more free than before to play the queen. 
Her son was only twenty-three when he was murdered, 
and had reigned only a year, so that she had not waited 
long. But she too must, as she thought, anticipate 
opposition, by rooting out all the surviving members of 
the royal family. Ahaziah's children were too young to 
reign, they could be killed off, and prevented from ever 
becoming old enough, and there were many rich branches 
of the house. All, alike, were massacred, by Athaliah 's 
orders, except one baby about two months old, the future 
Jehoash, whom the infant's aunt, a daughter of Jehoram, 
hurried, with its nurse, into the secrecy of the priests' 
chambers in the Temple, where he was safely guarded and 
cared for. To this one feeble life the race of David had 
been brought down. 

Meanwhile, Athaliah reigned unopposed, devoting her- 
self to the spread of her adored idol worship, and con- 
temptuously leaving the dilapidated Temple in the hands 
of the still surviving adherents of the old faith. In the 
seventh year of her usurpation, however, a revolution 
which would destroy her, and restore the line of David, 
seemed possible, and Jehoiada, the High Priest, resolved to 
venture on it. The preparations, carried out with the 
greatest secrecy, w^ere fortunately successful, and the 

1 2 Chroii. xxiv. 4, 7. 



252 ATHALIAH. 

young Jehoash was brought before the people, who hailed 
him as king, while Athaliah was deservedly put to death, 
forthwith. The restoration of Jehovali-worship followed 
at once. The temple of Baal was demolished, and its 
altars and images destroyed ; Mattan^ the high priest, 
being cut down, apparently, while sacrificing ; ^ but there 
was no further bloodshed. The courses of priests and 
Levites were reorganised, as arranged by Da^ddj^ and 
the Temple services re-established; but public feeling 
hindered the removal of the high-places, which were 
everywhere revered as sacred to Jehovah. 

The half-ruinous condition of the Temple could not be 
tolerated under the altered aspect of things, and it was, 
therefore, enjoined on the priests and Levites, by Jehoiada, 
that they should collect, yearly, in all the cities of Judah, 
the tax imposed by Moses, of half-a-shekel a head, for the 
holy place, ^ and use this for the restoration of the sanc- 
tuary. The selfishness of human nature, however, made 
the scheme a failure. The priests had vested interests in 
the money, and in the amounts given in payment of 
vows, or as free gifts, which, also, Jehoiada had ordered to 
be devoted to repairing the sacred house.* A policy of 
masterly inaction left the sacred building still broken 
down, after twenty-three years. ^ 

Another arrangement had, therefore, to be made. The 
matter was taken entirely out of the hands of the greedy 
priesthood, to whom their own revenues were much more 
than the honour of Jehovah. Instead of their handling 
the money, it was kept by Jehoiada in his own control, 

1 2 Kings xi. 18. - 2 Chron. xxiii. 18. 

3 2 Chron. xxiv. G-9 ; Exod. xxx. 12-U, 16 ; Num. i. 50 ; Acts vii. 44. 

■* 2 Kinos xii. 4. ^ 2 Kinars xii. 6. 



ATHALIAH. 253 

the king's scribe being appointed to check all receipts 
and payments, and a chest being provided, with a slit in 
it, for the coin to enter, that all gifts and other incomes 
might be collected in it. The priests were left nothing 
but the " trespass " and " sin " money. ^ A proclamation, 
moreover, was issued, requiring all to pay the Temple tax, 
which had not been collected in many cases ; and this 
resulted, now that things were on a sound footing, in the 
people bringing the amounts due, to Jerusalem. Honest 
overseers paid the workmen directly ; vigour was thrown 
into the task, and the restoration was at last rapidly ac- 
complished. Other measures weie taken to provide funds 
for the various requirements of public worship, and before 
long the sanctuary was once more as it had been in the 
better days of the past. 

1 2 Kings xii. 16 ; Num. v. 8 ; xviii. 8, 9. 



HEZEKIAH. 

HezeKIAH, the son of a weak and idolatrous father and 
of a princess called Abijah, "Jehovah is my father," was a 
striking contrast to Ahaz, and, it may be, was indebted, 
more or less, to his mother, for his better characteristics ; 
if her principles and life were in keeping with her 
significant name. Nothing could be more trying than 
the condition of Judah, when Hezekiah ascended the 
throne, on his father's death, as a young man of twenty- 
five. Ahaz, from the opening of his reign, had acted, 
like a silly child,^ on the impulse of the hour, without 
religious earnestness or national dignity. Under his 
evil guidance only the shadow of his father's glory was, 
erelong, left to the kingdom, in the haughty luxury 
of the few rich, the introduction of foreign manners, 
and, with them, of heathen superstition and apostasy.^ 
The valour of Uzziah's day vanished, the proud position 
of the state was lost ; and it was even invaded and laid 
waste by the allied kings of Israel and Syria ; Jerusalem 
itself being besieged by them, and a great multitude 
of the country people carried off and sold as slaves in 
Damascus.^ 

In vain did Isaiah exhort Ahaz to vigorous resistance 
and trust in Jehovah,* comparing his foes to smoking 

1 Isa. iii. 12. 2 isa. ii, 6. 

2 2 Kings xvi. 5 ; 2 Chi'on. xxviii. 5. ^ Isa. vii. 4, 7, 16. 

254 



HEZEKIAH. 255 

firebrands, presently to be quenched. His words were 
given to the winds, and the ominous coarse was taken, 
by the terrified 'king, of invoking help from Assyria, 
to which he sent the silver and gold of the Temple 
and the treasuries, to bribe support.^ He was thus 
saved any more anxiety from Israel or Damascus, but 
at the heavy price of becoming, henceforth, a vassal of 
Nineveh, — a calamity of which Isaiah loudly predicted 
the fatal results.'^ From this moment the state began 
to sink still more deeply. Edom and the Philistines 
rose successfully against it, and tore from it its outlying 
possessions.^ Still worse, idolatry grew rife under the 
patronage of the king, who " sacrificed and burnt incense 
in the high places, and on the hills, and under every 
green tree," ■^ giving himself up to Baal worship, and 
even to that of the horrible Moloch, to whom he actually 
offered one of his own sons.^ Nor was the Temple 
itself sacred from his desecration, for in the place where 
the brazen altar had stood, he raised one copied from 
an altar he had seen in Damascus, when paying homage 
there to Tiglath-pileser.^ 

One hope still remained, however, to Judah, thus 
degraded and decaying, in the moral infiuence of some 
noble men, whose souls, filled with loyalty to truth 
and right, as identified with the faith of their fathers, 
braved the king, and kept alive a spirit in the community, 
v/hich promised a better future. Among these were Isaiah 
and Micah, and to them we may ascribe much of the good 
found in the character of the heir-apparent, Hezekiah. 

1 2 Kings xvi. 7-9. ^ Isa. vii. 17 ; viii. 7. 

3 2 Kings xvi. 6 ; 2 Chron. xxviii. 17, 18. ^ 2 Kings xvi. 4. 

5 2 Kings xvi. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxviii. 2, 3. ^ 2 Kings xvi. 10-16. 



256 HEZEKIAH. 

The dawn of the new reign showed how radical was 
the difference between Ahaz and his son. Under the 
counsel of Isaiah, the young king showed himself more 
and more decided in his restoration of the old religion 
and the suppression of idolatry, so that the fond recollec- 
tions of an after-age spoke of him, in the words used 
also of Josiah, as one " after whom was none like him 
among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before 
him." ^ As early as the first day of the new year 
after his accession he showed his enthusiasm for the 
worship of Jehovah. By his orders the long closed doors 
of the Temple were once more opened and " strengthened," 
apparently by plates of gold on the old woodwork.^ 
The priests and Levites were also brought into the 
open space on the east side, before the Temple, — that 
is, the inner forecourt, — and required to sanctify them- 
selves, that tliey might set about cleansing the Temple, 
and fitting it again for public worship, which they could 
not do till they were levitically "clean." Everything 
" unclean " was required to be removed from the sacred 
chambers, and from the Temple courts. 

" Our fathers," said the king, — that is, Ahaz and his 
generation, — "had trespassed, and done evil in the eyes 
of Jehovah, and had forsaken Him, and turned their 
backs to the holy house, and their faces to other gods, 
and had shut up the entrance doors of the sanctuary, 
and thus put out the ever-burning lamps, which no 
one could approach to trim and keep burning, and also 
stopped the incense- offering on the golden altar, while 
burnt-offerings could not be presented, since the great 
altar had been taken away by Ahaz, and a Syrian altar, 

1 2 Kings xviii. 5 ; xxiii. 25. ^ 2 Kings xviii. 16, 



HEZEKIAH. 257 

consecrated to Syrian idols, had been put in its place. 
On account of this unfaithfulness and sin, the wrath 
of Jehovah had burned against Judah and Jerusalem, 
as all could see with their own eyes, in the wars there 
had been with the Syrians, the northern kingdom, the 
Philistines, and the Edomites, and, not less, in the 
oppression under which they lay from Assyria. For 
lo ! our fathers fell," -continued he, " in one day, before 
the sword of Pekah, to the number of a hundred and 
twenty thousand, all valiant men; and two hundred 
thousand men, women, and children were carried off, 
with much spoil, by Israel, though afterwards sent home 
again, which, however, was not the good fortune of 
the great multitude carried off as slaves to Damascus." ^ 
He had it in his mind, said the young king, to make a 
covenant with Jehovah, to serve Him in Judah, and 
Him only, that His fierce wrath might be turned from 
them. The assembled priests and Levites must throw 
themselves heartily into the sacred work ; for God had 
chosen them to the great honour of standing before 
Him, to serve Him, and minister to Him, and burn 
incense. 

This exhortation roused the multitude to such earnest- 
ness that ih sixteen days they had finished their task, 
having cleansed all the house of the Lord, which meant 
the whole sanctuary, embracing the courts and enclosed 
grounds, and the altar of burnt offering, after putting 
it again in its place, and all its " vessels," and the shew- 
bread table, and all connected with it. All the vessels, 
moreover, which Ahaz had cast away, had been cleansed, 

1 2 Chron. xxviii. 5-8. 

R 



258 HEZEKIAH. 

and made as they ought to be, and were now before 
the great altar. Everything that had defiled the sacred 
bounds had, in these busy days, been carried down to 
the Kedron by the Le-vdtes, and thus got rid of. 

The story of Hezekiah's reign as a whole cannot be 
told in one sketch ; but it was marked throughout by 
beautiful faithfulness to Jehovah, though not without 
two notable instances of weakness, when he yielded to 
the Egyptian party in Jerusalem and defied Assyria, in 
spite of the counsel of Isaiah, and when he showed his 
treasures to the envoys of the Babylonian king, Merodach 
Baladan. Yet he never turned aside from his fidelity 
to God. The reconsecration of the Temple was made 
the occasion of a great public act of worship, vast 
numbers of priests and Levites officiating, great sacrifices 
being offered, and an immense multitude gathering to 
take part in the services. 

At a subsequent time, apparently later than the fall 
of Samaria, which took place six years after Hezekiah's 
accession, a great Passover festival was celebrated, to 
which all were invited, frem Dan to Beersheba, the 
remnant of the northern kingdom being thus included. 
A vigorous effort, moreover, was made to purify the 
country from the idolatry that had prevailed. Even 
the brazen serpent of the wilderness was broken up, 
from its having become an object of superstitious rever- 
ence. Everywhere, the sun pillars of Baal were broken 
in pieces ; the Asherahs, or emblems of the female counter- 
part of Baal, were cut down ; the high places — that is, 
the sacred places built on hills — and the altars in all 
the land, were " utterly destroyed." A centralisation 
of worship, which greatly added to the importance of 



HEZEKIAH. . 259 

Jerusalem and the dignity of the Temple, was thus, in 
a measure, secured ; but the reign of Hezekiah's son, 
Manasseh, was to show that external reformations avail 
little, unless accompanied with a corresponding revolution 
in public morality and sentiment. 



ISA 14 H OF JERUSALEM. 

In the section of Isaiah, extending from chapters xxiv. 
to xxvii. inclusive, the Holy Land, with its capital, are 
represented as lying wasted and sad, in their desolation, 
their inhabitants plundered and mostly scattered, the 
small remnant still left, given up to lamentation, instead 
of enjoying their former happiness.^ Part of the com- 
munity, which has escaped to the distant coasts of the 
Great Sea, raise, thence, thanks and praise to Jehovah ; 
but the prophet, who has been left among the foe, 
laments his sad case.^ His evil treatment fills him with 
indignation, and rouses a hope that God will execute 
stern judgments on the enemy and their gods.^ 

Meanwhile, in anticipation of this, he praises Jehovah, 
who will take vengeance on the tyrants, and destroy 
for ever their city. Nor will those who crush this fearful 
power be behind himself in honouring God.* To all 
those who thus render Him grateful homage, Jehovah, 
throned again on Zion, as its mighty defender, will grant 
abiding prosperity, keeping all evil far from them, and 
taking away their reproach, by destroying all their 
enemies around, and, among others, the Moabites.^ 
Judah will then raise its song of joy, and praise the 
faithful God, who has, in His righteousness, smitten the 

i Isa. xxiv. 1-13. " Isa. xxiv. 14-16. ^ isa. xxiv, 17-23. 

^ Isa. XXV. 1-5, 5 Isa. xxv. 6-12. 

260 



ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. 261 

foe, and blesses His people, who trust in Him and cry to 
Him, restoring them again, and securing them permanent 
safety and happiness.^ 

Yet the land, after such terrible oppression, lies in 
an evil plight, and many of the people, swept away as 
captives, have died in exile. Would that they might 
rise again ! But this misery will shortly be over, for 
Jehovah will soon come forth and destroy the huge 
leviathan that desolates the earth.^ Thenceforward He 
will protect His vineyard, and His people will enjoy rich 
prosperity ; ^ for He chastised it only to purge it from 
its iniquity,* and when this has brought it to penitence, 
He will gather again, to it, all His poor exiles, and unite 
the whole community in a flourishing and righteous State.^ 

The primary reference of these chapters appears to be 
to the condition of Judah, when temporary ruin had 
just been brought on it by a terrible invasion ; ^ but it is 
hard to fix a period, exactly, as that intended by the 
prophet, for he rises above mere historical application, 
and turns his allusions to national experience, into 
emblems of the far distant Messianic future. 

In the opening of the twenty-sixth chapter, Moab has 
just been trodden down as straw is trodden and torn to 
pieces for teben, or fodder, on the threshing-floors of 
Madmenah, a Moabitish town, famous for its mound of 
refuse, — the dust-heap of the community, — at its entrance ; 
from which it got its name J Jehovah would smite Moab, 

1 Isa. xxvi. 1-16. 2 isa, xxvi. 17 to xxvii. ]. ^ Isa. xxvii. 2-6. 

4 Isa. xxvii. 7-11. 5 isa. xxvii. 12, 13. 

6 Isa. xxiv. 7-12 ; Jer. xliii, 5 ff. ; xliv. 22. 

7 There are no manure-heaps or dung-hills in the East, and no "pools" 
flowing from their juices. The Authorised Version and the Revised Version 
are both wrong in this verse (Isa. xxv. 10). 



262 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. 

hand over hand, in a shower of blows, as an Oriental 
smites the water when he swdms, — for he does not spread 
out his hands as we do, but beats his way on, — and 
would utterly lav them low, dismantling their fortresses, 
howeATr high or strong, and levelHng them with the 
ground. 

But while it will be thus with Moab, its enemy ,^ Judah 
will sing a triumph over the possession of the now im- 
pregnable city, Jerusalem ; for its outer and inner walls 
will be not merely stone ramparts, but the protecting 
might of Jehovah. In the time of the Messiah no walls, 
indeed, would be needed ; the " salvation " of God^ would 
be the defence of Zion. " They will call thy walls 
Salvation, and thy gates Praise ; " ^ for " Jehovah will 
Himself be to her a wall of fire round about, and the 
glory in the midst of her." ^ 

In the second verse, the citizens are called upon by a 
multitude of returned exiles, delivered from their far-off 
tyrants, and changed, by the softening influence of their 
troubles, to a worthy life of fidelity to Jehovah.^ " Open 
ye," they cry, " the gates ; " — for the city has gates, 
though " salvation " is its walls and bulwarks, — an 
incidental proof that the expression is only figurative, 
and that, even in the Messianic times, real walls and 
bulwarks were still imagined — " Open ye the gates, that 
the righteous nation which keepeth truth (towards 
Jehovah) may enter in." Delitzsch fancies this call is 
from heaven, and that they who are to open are angels. 
The ground of God's tender bearing towards them is, 
that, through their sufferings, they have learned to put 

1 Isa. sxvi. 11. - Isa. Ix. IS. ' ^ Zecb. ii. 5. 

•^ Jer. xxiv. 7 ; xxix. 12 ; Ezek. vi. 9. 



ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. 263 

their confidence in Him, and to hold fast to Him hence- 
forth. " Him who is of steadfast mind " (in his faith in 
Thee) "Thou wilt keep in peace," — protected from all 
evil, — (Thou wilt thus keep him in peace) " because he 
trusteth in Thee " (instead of trusting in idols, or in any 
earthly help). 

The population echo this in a wide refrain, as to a 
triumphal chant : " Trust ye (0 people) in Jehovah for 
ever : for in Jah Jehovah ye have an everlasting rock ; " 
that is, Jehovah will evermore protect and keep safe His 
people, as the high, virgin fortress, never overcome, 
guards and makes safe those within it. Against this 
high-towering, impregnable rock, all wdio would harm 
them can do nothing. He has shown this, beyond 
challenge, by the way in which, in these very times, He 
has brought down the pride of them that dwelt on high, 
— those of the lofty city, — the capital of Moab, with its 
high, fortified castle, and great walls ^ He laid low, even 
to the ground ; brought it even to the dust. The foot 
trod it under, — the feet of the wretched exiles, the foot- 
steps of the lowly. Like Moab, Babylon, itself, the 
tyrant, had been made to bow before the conqueror ; 
and the feet of the exiles, once oppressed and down- 
trodden in it, had trampled on the ruins of the palaces 
of their haughty taskmasters, as they hastened out of it, 
once more free, towards Jerusalem. 

Yet Jehovah grants not only triumph to His people 
over their oppressors, but prosperity, now that, through 
suffering, they have been led back to Him in heart. " The 
path of the righteous m^an " — that is, of the faithful 
servant of Jehovah — " is straight and even," so that he 

^ Isa. XXV. 12. 



264 ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. 

will neither stumble nor fall as he goes : " Thou levellest 
and makest to an even way the path of the righteous." 
Similarly, in Proverbs ^ we read, " In all thy ways 
acknowledge Him, and He shall make smooth thy paths ; " 
and;2 "The righteousness of the perfect" — that is, of 
him who perfectly trusts in Jehovah — " makes his way 
smooth and level ; but the v/icked falls by his own 
wickedness." The figure is a poetical mode of promising 
prosperity, just as calamity is represented by a rough, 
broken path.^ 

- The people of God have waited and longed for the 
breaking forth of His judgments against their tyrants; 
feeling assured that, in the end, He would enter on the 
path of the righteous judge, and execute deserved judg- 
ment on their adversaries. The longing of their soul 
had been that He would reveal Himself as the Mighty 
One and the Just, which is His name and memorial. 
In the dark days of trouble and exile, — in the night 
when one turns to thought and to prayer, "I longed 
after thee," says the voice of a single speaker, — perliaps 
the prophet himself. "Yea, with my spirit within me 
have 1 longed for thee earnestly," that Thou wouldst 
appear as the avenging Judge. " For when Thy judgments 
are in the earth, descending on it from Thee in heaven, 
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness," and 
are thus brought to a better frame. 

But, on the other hand, let the godless be treated with 
long-suffering favour and forbearance, he will not learn 
righteousness, but continues his tyrannical wrong-doing. 
Such had been the experience of Judah with its oppressors. 

1 Prov, iii. 6. ' Prov. xi. 5. 

3 Lam, iii. 9 ; Job xxx. 13. 



ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM. 265 

After conquering many nations, the Chaldsean would 
invade even its sacred bounds, and deal wrongfully in 
a land where justice and righteousness should always 
have reigned, a land that was holy, — and would take 
no heed to the fact that Judah belonged to the most 
high God, and that He dwelt in it. To lay waste other 
lands was natural, though unjust ; but not to spare 
even Jehovah's land, showed the uttermost wickedness : 
made possible only by the long-suffering patience of 
its God. 



THE GREAT HOPE. 

The beautiful verses in which Isaiah paints the glories of 
the Jewish race in the distant future ' have in every 
age been referred, both by Jews and Christians, to the 
"Anointed of God" — the Messiah and the kingdom He 
should establish ; indeed, it would almost seem as if they 
had been known beyond the bounds of the Hebrew race, 
and had aided Yirgil in the picture of the Golden Age., 
which he imagines, in the delicate flattery of a poet, as 
destined to follow the birth of a son of the Consul Asinius 
Pollio.-2 

It is interesting to study the precise connection in 
which this famous passage is introduced by the prophet, 
and its primary application in his hands. The section in 
which it occurs begins with the fifth verse of the tenth 
chapter, and continues to tlie sixth verse of the twelfth ; 
opening with a reference to Assyria, as commissioned by 
God to punish Israel for its sins, but, in the pride of its 
military glory, proposing to go beyond the Divine pur- 
poses, and "destroy and cut off nations not a few," 
and "do to Jerusalem and her idols" as he had done to 
" Samaria and her idols." ^ This, however, he will not be 
allowed to carry out ; for Jehovah will bring to nothing 
the Assyrian army, when it has invaded Judah and 
fulfilled the design of God in the chastisement of the 

1 Isa. si. 6-9. - EdoQ. iv. 5. ^ Isa. x. 5-15. 

•266 



THE GREAT HOPE. 267 

people, and their penitent return to a better moral 
state.^ 

Judah need not, therefore, despair, though the Great 
King come against her. The Assyrian will, indeed, come 
up towards Jerusalem from the north, and press it close, 
but, while seeking to crush it, will himself be destroyed 
by Jehovah. Though the foe "shake his hand against 
the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem," 
the Lord will come forth against him, even the Lord of 
hosts, and smite his forest-like army, — lopping the bough 
with terror, and hewing down the high ones of stature, 
and humbling the mighty, and cutting down the thickets 
of the forest wdth iron, and felling his Lebanon to the 
ground.^ " The Lord shall send among his fat ones lean- 
ness ; and under his glory there shall be kindled a burn- 
ing like the burning of fire. And the light of Israel shall 
be for a fire, and his Holy One for a fiame : and it shall 
burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one da}^ 
And He shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his 
fruitful field, both soul and body : and it shall be as 
when a sick man pineth away. And the remnant of 
the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may 
write them.^ 

The invasion of Judah thus anticipated, seems to have 
been one of the two which we know the great Assyrian 
king Sargon to have made, after he had taken Samaria in 
B.C. 7i2. Two years later he was again in Palestine, to 
crush an alliance of the local kings with Egypt, his rival ; 
routing the forces of the l^haraoh at Eaphia, and fiercely 
stamping out the rebellion, from Hamath on the Orontes 
to Gaza in the far south. But a fresh alliance against his 

1 Isa. X. lG-2;{, - Vers. 24-34. » Vers. 10-19. 



268 THE GEEAT HOPE. 

supremacy recalled him, in B.C. 711, after the ambassadors 
from Merodach Baladan had visited Hezekiah, in the hope 
of forming an alliance with him and the other local 
princes against Sargon, his mighty foe ; and it is to this 
invasion, apparently, that the prophet refers, though the 
destruction of the Assyrian army at this time has not 
come down to us. But while destruction awaited the 
enemy of the people of God, that people was itself destined 
to rise from its humiliation, and to attain wondrous glory 
under a prince of the line of David. It was no more than 
the stump of a fallen tree, in contrast to the glory as of a 
Lebanon cedar, ascribed to Assyria. It had neither trunk, 
branches, nor foliage. But while Assyria is to perish 
utterly, there is life in the root of the humbled house of 
Jesse, and from the lowest fortunes it will once more rise 
gloriously. There is hope in this tree, though it has been 
cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender 
branch thereof will not cease.^ A shoot will spring from 
it, which will renew its trunk and branches, and a fresh 
gi'een sucker will rise from the roots, covered over, as 
they are, with the soil. This second clause is used by 
St. Matthew as an explanation of the term "I^azarene," 
applied to Christ after Joseph had returned to Xazareth ; 
the Hebrew word for '•' sucker " or " shoot " being Xazer, 
which resembles IN'azarene in sound. But it will not 
remain thus feeble ; for " it wiU bear fruit." One day, its 
glorious crown will hang thick with it. 

In the second verse the figure is changed from a tree to 
a living prince, the Messiah, God's anointed. " There will 
descend and rest on him the Spirit of Jehovah, the spirit 
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and 

Job xiv. 7. 



THE GREAT HOPE. 269 

might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah." ^ 
In mind, in the gifts needed for wise and fruitful action, 
and in those implied in a lofty spiritual life, he will be 
abundantly and abidingly blessed, from the supreme foun- 
tain of the Divine Spirit. " Wisdom " is the power to see 
through appearances, to the essence of things; "counsel" 
is the gift which will enable him to form just resolves, and 
"might," that which will secure their being vigorously 
carried out. The knowledge, of Jehovah and " fear " of 
His majesty are those of loving communion with Him and 
lowly reverence. 

His kingly rule will be moulded by these high endow- 
ments. " His delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah," as 
the sweetest of odours to him,^ " and he shall not judge 
after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hear- 
ing of his ears." Eeverencing God, he shows his fear of 
Him in his imitation, toward his subjects, of the absolute 
and impartial justice of the Eternal, — a matter of supreme 
moment in an Oriental monarch, who is judge as well as 
ruler of his people. His decisions as judge will be 
made, not by what he sees in the suitor, — whether he be 
high or low, powerful or weak, rich or poor, — nor by what 
report, or defendant, or accused, or witness, may say, but 
by that which, as a man fearing God, he sees to be the 
essential truth. Contrary to what had been the case in 
the past,^ he will give heed to the cause of the poor and 
helpless, by incorruptible justice against their oppressors, 
and with absolute uprightness will decide the case of the 
meek and humble of the land, who, before his day, had 

1 See Isa. Ixi. 1 ; Matt. iii. 16 ; John i. 32, 33 ; iii. 34. 

2 The Hebrew word is translated, in the forty-nine places in which it 
occurs, "smell," "scent," "savour." 

^ Isa. i. 23 ; X. 2. 



27C; THE GEEAT HOPE. 

been treated most wrongfully.^ Moreover, the execution 
of his righteous decrees shall smite the guilty, as with a 
rod, over all the land, none escaping their just punish- 
ment : for, when his reign is new, there will still be e\T.l 
doers. " The wicked " will even be sternly put to death 
by his sentence, " the breath of his lips," — his reign being 
thus strongly righteous, because, as one that fears God, 
righteousness and fidelity to truth are in his character 
and nature, like the girdle round a man, that binds every- 
thing^ together. 

Under such a ruler. Good and Eight will come to un- 
challenged dominion, even hurtful beasts laying aside their 
malignity and violence. The w^olf will lie down beside 
the lamb, till now proverbially its prey, the leopard with 
the kid, and the lion with the calves. They will, indeed, 
form, together, a peaceful flock, which willingly follows a 
little boy, its shepherd. The liesh-eating animals are no 
lonc^er to devour anv livins; creatures, but will live, like 
cattle, on the growth of the soil : the cow and the bear 
feeding together on the grass of the pastures, their young 
ones lying down peacefully together, and the lion eating 
teben, — the broken straw of the threshing-floor, — like the 
ox in the stall. In those days the suckling will be left, 
without fear, beside the hole of the poisonous asp, that he 
may play wdth the snake, then turned harmless ; and the 
weaned child will stretch out his hand to toy with the 
basilisk as it comes out of its crevice. Asps and \'ipers 
will then no longer bite, but will have become kindly and 
guileless. The basilisk was a specially deadly viper, so 
that the picture is made very striking by its being men- 
tioned in such a way. The Golden Age will come back 

1 Isa. iii. 15 : v. 23. 



THE GEE AT HOPE. 271 

again, and the old times of paradise be repeated, when 
innocence reigned alike in the human bosom and the lower 
creatures, and " every green herb," but nothing beyond, 
was given to every beast of the earth for food.^ 

And as the lower creatures will no longer hurt, so man 
will cease from injuring his fellow. They will not hurt 
or destroy one another in all God's holy mountain — 
Jerusalem, or, possibly, Canaan as a whole ; — for now the 
knowledge of God will be universal among the once blind 
and foolish multitude, covering the landscape as the 
waters cover the great bed of the ocean. In those days 
the shoot from the now broken stem of Jesse will rise 
high over the land, as a rallying banner to the nations, 
who will ask respecting it, and flock to it in bands, to be 
under the '^ Anointed" King, who reigns in a realm so 
supremely blessed. Nor will they come empty-handed to 
him at Jerusalem, but will make the place where he has 
his peaceful abode a wide glory, by the splendid embassies, 
with many and glorious gifts, sent to him through the 
fame of his transcendent wisdom and goodness. 

Then also will the Hebrews, scattered through all 
countries, be allowed by the nations to return to their 
fatherland, from Mesopotamia, Lower and Upper Egypt, 
Ethiopia, Elam — beyond the Tigris, — Babylonia, Syria, 
and the islands and lands of the Mediterranean ; for so 
widely was Israel scattered even in the eighth century 
before Christ. They shall gather, with the nations, to the 
banner set up, from the four corners of the earth. 

The feud between the northern tribes and Judah will 
not be revived, but all the tribes will live together, in 
peace and love. They will, as a united people, pounce, 

1 Gen. i. 30. 



272 THE GREAT HOPE. 

eagle-like, on the shoulders of the Philistines towards the 
west, and spoil them, and also on the peoples to the East, 
enlarging the bounds of the kingdom by their victories. 
And, to free the Hebrews on the Nile, Jehovah will make 
a dry path for them through it, by dividing its waters, 
and will do the same with the Euphrates, to open a way 
for those beyond it. Thus there will be a highway from 
Assyria, for the remnant of His people which remains, such 
as there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of 
the land of Egypt. 



HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 

The reign of Hezekiah began in the year B.C. 724 and 
ended in B.C. 695, while that of Sennacherib of Assyria 
began in B.C. 705 and closed in B.C. 681. The fourteenth 
year of the Jewish king would fall, therefore, about B.C. 
711-710 : five years before that of the Assyrian began; 
and, thus, it would seem to be an error of the ancient 
copyists when it is said, in the first verse of the thirty- 
sixth chapter of Isaiah, that "in the fourteenth year of 
King Hezekiah, Sennacherib came up against all the 
fenced cities of Judah, and took them." It was Sargon, 
his father, who invaded Judah at that time ; the invasion 
by Sennacherib falling in the years B.C. 702-701, Sargon 
reigned from B.C. 722, — the year in which he took 
Samaria, the siege of which had been brought almost 
to a close by his predecessor, Shalmaneser lY. 

The destruction of Samaria must have created great 
alarm in the court of Egypt, since it destroyed " the 
balance of power " between the monarchs of the Nile 
and the Tigris, and removed an important hindrance to 
the advance of the rulers of Nineveh against the land 
of the Pharaohs, between which and its great enemy, it 
had acted as a protecting outpost, so long as it remained 
in any measure an independent state. The last hope 
was that Judah and the different petty nationalities of 
Palestine, might be won by fair words, to ally themselves 

273 



274 HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 

with Egypt against Assyi'ia ; and intrigues for this end 
had been constant, from the time of the destruction of 
the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, till, at last, Ashdod, the 
Philistine " city," and most of the local kings and chiefs, 
openly revolted from Sargon, and refused to pay him 
tribute ; identifying themselves with their closer neigh- 
bour, Kiuf^ So ^ — the reining Pharaoh. 

But Sargon soon crushed the confederacy. Sending 
his commander-in-chief, or " Tartan," against Ashdod, 
it was presently taken by storm, sacked, and burned, 
while the victor carried off its population, and settled 
foreign colonists, from races he had conquered, in their 
place. Yaman, the king, had fled to Egypt, or, as it is 
said, Libya ; but, instead of protecting one who had lost 
all for him. So meanly delivered him to Sargon's general, 
by whom he was sent to Assyria, " bound, hand and 
feefc, with iron chains." Hanun of Gaza was treated by 
the conquerors " as a slave," whole districts were de- 
populated, and terror unbounded paralysed the whole 
/land. Judah, lying close to the Philistine plain, thus 
scourged, was erelong invaded ; for Sargon boasts that 
" he subdued the remote land of Judah," though, un- 
fortunately, no details are given. Jerusalem must have 
yielded to the conditions of the conqueror ; for it was 
not dismantled or destroyed, but remained like an islet 
above the flood of invasion. After a time, Sargon re- 
tired, and Palestine saw him or his forces no more. In 
705, he lay, murdered, on the floor of the grand palace 
he had built for himself in Nineveh, and Sennacherib, 
his sou, reigned in his stead. 

But the death of the great warrior rekindled the hopes 

1 2 Kings xvii, 4. 



HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 275 

of Egypt. Might not the Pharaoh now reconstitute the 
old alliance with the kings of Palestine, and thus free 
himself from tribute to Assyria ? His intrigues soon 
set all Western Asia in a flame ; and in B.C. 702-701 
the Assyrian legions were once more on the march 
towards the Great Sea ; Sennacherib at their head. Sidon 
felt the first shock ; for, after all its promises, Egypt 
sent it no help. Then came the turn of the chiefs of 
Arvad and Gebal on the north, and of Ashdod on the 
south, with Ascalon, Beth-dagon, Joppa, and other places. 
Ammon, Moab, and Edom, dismayed at their danger, 
hastened to kiss the feet of the Great King, and renew 
their yearly tribute. Hezekiah of Jerusalem, alone, 
withheld his submission, and put his capital in a state 
of defence, like that with which it had met Sargon's 
invasion, ten years before. Still worse, he had allowed 
the Ekronites to send their vassal king in chains to 
him, for his loyalty to Assyria, and he was a prisoner 
in Jerusalem, in open insult to Sennacherib. 

Meanwhile, Egypt, under Tirhakah, the Pharaoh of a 
new Ethiopian dynasty which had seized royal power 
on the 'Nile, marched an army to the Philistine plain to 
repel the Assyrians ; but it was utterly defeated at 
Eltekeh near Libnah, in the old territory of Dan, not 
very far from Jerusalem. No help could be had from 
that quarter. Ekron next fell ; its chief men being im- 
paled in a ghastly circle round the town, and the bulk 
of the people led off into slavery. Lachish, between Gath 
and the hill country, was next assailed. But now came 
the evil hour for Hezekiah. A strong force marched up 
the passes from the plains, and, forthwith, forty-six of 
the Jewish towns were stormed, many villages destro3-ed 



276 HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 

and 200,150 captives, " small and great, male and female," 
led off as slaves, with " horses, mares, asses, camels, oxen, 
and sheep, beyond counting." Jerusalem, moreover, was 
closely invested. " I shut him up like a bird, inside 
Jerusalem," says the Great King, " and constructed siege- 
towei'S against him." Encouraged by the words of Isaiah, 
Hezekiah stoutly refused to yield, either to force or to the 
threats of the Eabshakeh ; that is, the commander-in-chief 
of the Assyrian army, who opened communications with 
Hezekiah and his people. Yet Jerusalem hoped that 
Tirhakah might come, after all. 

But resistance was, in the end, found to be vain, and 
the Jewish king consented to renew his tribute to 
Sennacherib. The " cities " taken from him were given, 
we are told, to the kings of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza : 
the yearly gifts and tributes were increased, and a long, 
sad train of " workmen, soldiers, and masons " carried 
thirty talents of gold and eight hundred of silver, with 
webs of scarlet and other cloths, preciotis stones, ivory 
couches, and chairs, skins of buffaloes, and quantities of 
valuable timber, to the camp at Lachish, whence it was 
sent on, by the same bearers, to ISTineveh. " Daughters 
of Hezekiah, the male and female inmates of his palace, 
and slaves of both sexes," also formed part, we are told, 
of the fearful impost exacted for rebellion. An envoy 
accompanied the long, mournful procession, to the feet 
of the Great King at Lachish, and there did homage for 
Hezekiah. The treasury had been emptied, and the gold 
still left on the Temple gates and door-posts stripped off, 
to meet the Assyrian demands. 

Something, however, roused Sennacherib's anger once 
more, while still in the plains, and, before long, the 



HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 277 

Assyrians appeared a second time at Jerusalem. Fear 
of a second attack by Tirhakah forbade any attempt at 
a renewed siege, but a formal letter from the Assyrian 
himself might bring Hezekiah to terms, and make him 
open his gates. The gods of all other cities and countries, 
said the haughty sultan, had been helpless to protect their 
worshippers against Assyria, — and who w^as Jehovah, that 
He should be more powerful ? 

Like the good man he was, Hezekiah, on receiving and 
reading this ominous " letter," went forthwith into the 
Temple with it, and " spread it before the Lord," as if to 
show the Eternal what blasphemy was uttered against 
Him, and thus stir up His indignation to protect His holy 
city. As the poor king did so, his full heart overflowed 
in touching words of prayer. " Jehovah of hosts," 
cried he, " the God of Israel, who sittest between the 
cherubim, Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the 
kingdoms of the earth ; Thou hast made heaven and 
earth. Incline Thine ear, Lord, and hear ; open Thine 
eyes, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, 
which he has sent to reproach the living God. Of a 
truth. Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the 
nations, and their lands, and have burnt their gods in 
the fire : for they were no gods, but the work of men's 
hands, — wood and stone. And on this account the 
Assyrian w^as able to destroy them. Now, therefore, 
Jehovah, our God, save us from his hand, that all the 
kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou alone art 
the one living God, Jehovah." 

Forthwith came the answer ; for a message from Isaiah 
announced that God, through him, declared that, not- 
withstanding all his boasts, the King of Assyria would 



278 HEZEKIAH AND ASSYEIA. 

not come into Jerusalem, nor shoot an arrow against it, 
nor advance against the walls under the shelter of linked 
shields, nor raise a mound against it, on which to set up 
his engines of war, to overtop the defences, and launch 
death within them. " By the way that he came," said 
the prophet, " by the same shall he return, and shall not 
come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will protect 
this city as a bird protects its nest, and save it, for Mine 
own sake, and for My servant David's sake." 

Whence was this deliverance to come ? Egypt had 
proved a broken reed. Jerusalem, though strong in its 
natural position, was small, and helpless against the 
overwhelming forces of the supreme power of the age. 
But there is nothing too hard for God. " The angel of 
the Lord," we are told, " went forth, and smote in the 
camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and live 
thousand men," and nothing was left for Sennacherib 
but a hasty retreat, " with shame of face, to his own 
land." A tradition of this catastrophe survives in 
Herodotus ; nor is there any question of its historical 
truth. 

The great king lived for twenty years after his flight, 
but vengeance overtook him, in the end, for his life of 
violence. Country after country had been laid waste 
after his return to Mneveh, and in bis closing years he 
had built a great palace there, nearly three times as long 
as St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and more than twice 
as deep and broad, — a wonder of magnificence in any 
age. The walls and gates of the city had also been 
restored or rebuilt by him, the outer rampart forming 
a great fortress eight miles in circumference. But a 
death of violence was common with Assyrian kiugs. 



HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA. 279 

Among his sons, two thought themselves aggrieved by 
him, and, having resolved to seize the throne, fell on 
their father while he was worshipping in the temple of 
his god, Nisroch, and murdered him. Yet they gained 
nothing by their parricide, for another son, Esar-haddon, 
took the field against them, and, after defeating them, 
mounted the throne. 

The destruction of the great host in the Philistine 
plains appears to have been from a sudden outbreak of 
pestilence. This is the Jewish tradition, and pestilence 
is said in the Bible to be the work of an angel.^ 

1 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17. 



THE SUFFERING "SERVANT OF GOD." 

The quotations from the later portion of Isaiah by the 
New Testament writers leave no doubt that they saw in 
the fifty-third chapter and those connected with it, as 
their great characteristic, a series of sublime prophecies 
of the Messiah, which were realised in our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Thus Matthew ^ applies the first four verses of 
the forty-second chapter of Isaiah to Him, repeating them, 
apparently without strict adherence to the actual text, 
but following the Greek version of the Seventy more 
closely than the Hebrew. Paul and Barnabas (Acts xiii. 
47), in the same way, apply Isaiah's (xlix. 6) words, respect- 
ing the Servant of God being a light of the Gentiles, to 
Christ, and also the assurance that He would be for salva- 
tion unto the ends of the earth. St. Paul ^ farther quotes 
(xlix. 8) words from Isaiah as an assurance, to those 
whom he addresses, that the grace of God then offered, 
through Jesus Christ, was set before them in realisation 
of the words of the prophet, — the time at which the 
Apostle was writing being " the accepted time " to which 
Isaiah refers. In Eomans (xv. 21), he again quotes from 
the Greek version part of Isaiah (lii. 15) as illustrating his 
having preached the Gospel where Christ had not pre- 
viously been named. 

In the Gospel by St. John ^ other words of Isaiah 

1 Matt. xii. 18-2]. 2 2 Cor. vi. 2. s John xii. 38. 

2S0 



THE SUFFERING "SERVANT OF GOD." 281 

(liii. 1) are quoted in a very striking way. " Though He 
had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed 
not on Him : that the saying of Esaias the prophet might 
be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our 
report ? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been 
revealed ? " And they are also quoted, in the same rela- 
tion, by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Eomans.^ In the 
Gospel by St. Matthew,'^ part of the fourth verse of Isaiah 
liii. is quoted, with a more strict correspondence to the 
Hebrew than that of our Authorised Version, as being 
illustrated by our Lord casting out devils and healing all 
that were sick. In 1 Peter moreover (ii. 24, 25), there 
is a repeated allusion to the langua^^e of Isaiah (liii. 5, 6), 
as fulfilled in the sufferings and death of our Lord. 

In Acts (viii. 32), Philip is introduced as reading to the 
Ethiopian eunuch the seventh and eighth verses from the 
fifty- third chapter of the great prophet ; but, curiously, he 
again quotes from the Greek translation of the Bible, not 
from the Hebrew, the Ethiopian having that with him, 
and doubtless knowing nothing of the original language. 
Nor does the Evangelist make any remark to him, on the 
variations in the translation he was reading, from the text 
of the Hebrew, which was canonical and inspired, while 
that of the Septuagint was the rendering of it made by 
uninspired scholars, — a fact which silences for ever any 
objection such as, that, if we are to learn from Scripture 
the real will of God, we must go to the original. 

In 1 Peter (ii. 22) we have still another introduction 
of the words of our chapter as referring to our Lord. " He 
had done no violence," says the prophet, "neither was 
any deceit in His mouth." "Who did no sin," says 

i Rom. X. 10. 2 Matt. viii. 17. 



282 THE SUFFERING "SERVANT OF GOD." 

St. Peter, " neither was guile found in His mouth." The 
next verse of the Apostle (v. 23), moreover, sounds like 
an echo of the seventh verse of our chapter. Finally, 
our Lord is stated, by St. Luke,^ to have Himself quoted 
from the twelfth verse of our chapter, and applied it 
directly to Himself, in these striking words, " But now, 
he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a 
wallet : and he that hath none, let him sell his cloak, and 
buy a sword. For I say unto you, that this which is 
written must be fulfilled in Me, And He was reckoned 
with transgressors : for that which concerneth Me hath 
fulfilment." 

The section to which the fifty-third chapter belongs, 
commences at the thirteenth verse of the fifty- second. It 
follows naturally, a' so, upon that which precedes it. In 
the fiftieth chapter (v. 6) for example, the " Servant of the 
Lord," is described as giving his back to the smiters, and 
his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, while he did 
not hide his face even from shame and spitting. In one 
section, the prophet announces that, in proportion to the 
humiliations to which this " Servant of God " has been in 
the past subjected, will be his final exaltation and honour. 
The verses immediately before Isaiah lii. 13 are the final 
summons to the exiles of Babylon to depart from it, but 
not by flight nor in haste ; for the Lord will go before 
them, and the God of Israel will be their rereward, in 
their return to Judea. 

Then the prophet continues, " Behold, My servant shall 
deal wisely (or, prosper) and shall (hence) be exalted 
and lifted up, and shall be very high ; " that is, will attain 
high estimation and great honour. This exaltation will 

i Luke xxii. 37. 



TPIE SUFFERING "SERVANT OF GOD." 283 

correspond to his previous deep misery. " Like as many 
were shocked (or, appalled) at him (so marred was he 
that his visa<:^e was unlike that of ;l man, and his form 
unlike that of the sons of men,) in the same way he will 
(now) fill many nations with wonder ; kings shall shut 
their mouths at him, (not only saying no evil of him, as 
in the past, but keeping silence, in their wondering homage 
and reverence), for that which had not been told them 
shall they see ; and that which they had not heard shall 
they perceive." 

The revelations made by the prophet have, hitherto, 
had no acceptance, because men had no adequate concep- 
tion of the infinite power of God. " Who," he asks, " has 
believed our words, and to whom has the arm of the Lord 
(His infinite power) been revealed (from above) ? For he 
(the Servant of Jehovah) grew up like a tender shoot 
before Him, (that is, before God), and like a sucker from a 
root in parched ground ; he had no form nor comeliness, 
and we looked, and there was no beauty that we should 
desire him. He was despised and forsaken, (or, rejected) of 
men, (no one would have relations with him, he was so 
marred and contemned) : a man of sorrows (or, pains) and 
familiar with sickness (or, grief), and like one before whom 
men hide their face, (shrinking from the sight of him) ; one 
despised, so that we esteemed him not. (Yet he bore all 
this suffering for the good of his people, and deserved 
gratitude, not contempt, from them.) Surely he hath 
borne our sicknesses (griefs), and our pains (sorrows) 
were laid upon him ; yet we regarded him as one stricken, 
smitten, and laden with suffering by God (for his own 
sins\ 

" But it was for our transgressions he was pierced, for 



284 THE SUFFERING "SERVANT OF GOD." 

our iniquities he was (thus) bruised, the chastisement of 
our sins was on him for our peace, by his stripes we are 
healed. We all, like sheep, had gone astray ; we wandered, 
every one, his own way. Yet Jehovah made the iniquity 
of us all light upon him. He was evil entreated, yet he 
humbled himself, and did not open his mouth, (but was) 
like the sheep that is led to the slaughter bench, and, as 
a sheep that is dumb before her shearers, he was silent. 
From prison and from sentence he was hurried away, but 
who among his generation bethought himself that he was 
cut off out of the land of the living, that he was stricken, 
on account of the transgression of My people ? .They 
made (him) his grave among the wicked and among the 
rich, in his death, although he had done no violence, 
neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the 
Lord to bruise him, and lay on him grief, (trouble of body) : 
but altliough he gave his life as an offering for the sin of 
his people, he will live again, and see his posterity, yea, 
live long, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in 
his hand. 

" Looking on all this, — his posterity, his long life, and 
the favour of God shown him thus ; free now, moreover, 
from the travail of his soul, he will be satisfied with the 
results of his life and work. By his knowledge shall My 
righteous Servant justify many, (through his wise instruc- 
tion and guidance, he will lead them to righteousness, and 
secure their acceptance with God), and he shall bear their 
iniquities. Therefore will I (Jehovah) give him a portion 
among the great, and he will divide the spoil with the 
strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and 
was numbered with evil-doers ; yet he bare the sin of 
many, and made intercession for the transgressors." 



yosiAH, 

JosiAH, the last of the kings of David's line who reflected 
honour on his pedigree, was the son of Amon, — a name 
strongly suggesting that his father, Manasseh, a fanatical 
heathen for most of his life, had called him after the 
famous Egyptian God of Thebes, though this may be 
only a fancy, as other " Anions " are found in the Bible. ^ 
The suspicion is natural, however, for even Manasseh 
was not a more zealous patron of the foreign idols he 
had introduced, than his son showed himself. The 
Egyptian faction in Jerusalem, which sought to break 
with Assyria and look for help to the Nile, had gained 
the upper hand, in spite of the great prophet Isaiah, 
in the later years of Hezekiah, and had retained it 
during the whole fifty-five years of Manasseh's reign 
and the two years of that of Amon, who was murdered 
in his palace at the age of twenty-four. 

The zeal of Hezekiah for Jehovah was thus a distant 
tradition of the past w^hen Josiah came to the throne, 
in B.C. 640, a child eight years old. His grandfather 
had been only twelve at his accession, his father twenty- 
two, and now again a long minority threatened danger 
to the little state. Manasseh had destroyed, as far 
as he could, all traces of Hezekiah's reforms, restorino- 
the worship of idols on the high places, introducing 

1 1 Kings xxii. 26 ; Nch. vii. 59. 

285 



286 JOSTAH. 

afresh the worship of Baal, Moloch, and Astarte, and 
extending the Babylonian star worship beyond anything 
seen before in Judah. Healhen idols tilled, not only 
the outer, but also the inner, forecourt of the Temple, 
and an Astarte image was set up even in the holy building 
itself.^ The counsels of heathen soothsayers and workers 
in magic, which did not trouble the conscience, were 
substituted for those of the prophets. Like a cup full 
to the lip, Jerusalem, as it were, ran over with the 
blood of Jehovah worshippers, including, apparently, even 
Isaiah ; the persecution continuing until the old religion 
seemed to have perished. The tribute promised to Assyria 
having been withheld, the land was twice invaded from 
Nineveh, and Manasseh himself carried off to Babylon, 
then under Assyria ; but, after a time, he was allowed 
to return, dying at last in the Holy City ; his last years 
having been spent, more or less, in efforts to undo, in 
some measure, the evil of his former hfe. 

Unhappily, Amon, his son, instead of carrying out 
such reforms, let the heathen party have its way again, 
so that all the abuses of idolatry which had prevailed 
in the worst times of his father once more flourished. 
Was it through a growing public resentment, at this 
return to a system under which the land had been 
so terribly visited with two invasions by Assyria, that 
the unfortunate young king was so soon murdered ? 

Whatever the cause of his father's death, Josiah was 
wise enough to sympathise with the kindling opposition 
to foreign gods, who had brought such calamities on 
the country. Married at the age of thirteen, he was 
also pi'ecociously mature in his mind and decided in his 

i 2 Kings xxi, 2-7 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3-7. 



josiAH. 287 

resolutions. The past told him of the prosperity of 
kings like Hezekiah, Uzziah, Jehoash, and Jehoshaphat, 
who had been faithful to Jehovah, and thus pointed 
out the secret of national well-being. 

His first open step toward the restoration of the 
national faith was necessarily delayed till the eighth 
year of his reign, when he was in his sixteenth year. 
He then felt himself able to set about a thorough ex- 
tirpation of all traces of the idolatry, which had disfigured 
Jerusalem and the country at large, more or less, since 
Solomon's time, but especially since the days of Ahaz 
and Manasseh. The altars and " pillars " of the native 
or Tyrian Baal and Astarte worship, the temples of 
the Moabite and Ammonite gods and of Moloch, the 
altars dedicated to the Babylonian star worship, the 
cells in the Temple courts, used as homes by the women 
dedicated to the unchaste service of the various idols, 
were destroyed, and everything connected with household 
idolatry or heathen sorcery, swept away as far as possible. 
The sacred places of the idols were permanently desecrated 
by strewing on them the ashes of human bones : the 
tombs of the idol priests being emptied to supply the 
ghastly " uncleanness." 

The restoration of the Temple worship followed, in 
the eighteenth year of the king's reign (B.C. 623). The 
Temple had been repaired about a hundred and fifty 
years before, but the evil times of Manasseh and Anion 
had left it to fall into partial ruin. The High Priest 
Hilkiah was therefore solemnly commissioned to take 
in hand the renovation of the whole structure, where 
needed ; and. this he forthwith set about with notable 
energy. Every part of the sacred buildings and accessories 



288 JOSIAH. 

was duly examined; and, among others, one chamber 
in which a very momentous discovery rewarded the 
thoroughness of the operations. 

" When they brought out the money," we are told, 
" tliat was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah 
the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given 
by Moses." What this precious roll contained is not 
easily determined. That it could have been read through 
in so short a time as is implied in various passages,^ 
seems to preclude the idea that it embraced all the 
five books of the Pentateuch. It was, however, identical 
with parts, at least, of the books of Moses ; for it had 
both ritual laws and the great utterance of blessings and 
curses, found in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy ; ^ 
the public mind being henceforth so deeply impressed 
with these, as to show their influence on both the 
language and the thought of the kingdom, from that 
time. There are abundant grounds, nevertheless, for 
rejecting the theory broached in these last years, that 
it was simply our Deuteronomy, written, then, by no 
one knows whom, and produced opportunely, as a treasure 
dating from the time of Moses. The Hebrew of that 
book abounds in archaisms enough to show that it was 
no pious fraud contrived for the occasion, but a veritable 
legacy from the same antiquity as marks the rest of 
the Pentateuch. Indeed, the arbitrary division of each 
of the five books into fragments, alleged to be of the 
most opposite age, makes it impossible to accept the 
ideas of extreme critics as to any portion. 

1 2 Kings xxii. 8, 10 ; xxiii. 2. 

2 Deut. xxviii. S. ; 2 Kings xxii. 13, 16 flf. ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 24 S. ; xxxv. 
G. 12. 



JOSIAH. 289 

Deeply moved by hearing this sacred oracle, Josiah 
sent it to a prophetess, Huldah, then of high repntation, 
to ask counsel respecting the bearing of its blessings 
and curses on the living generation, but got from her 
very little consolation ; the wrath of God, as threatened 
on disobedience, being declared imminent on Judah and 
Jerusalem. " Behold," said she, in the name of Jehovah, 
" God will bring evil on this place and its inhabitants, 
even all the curses written in the book, because they 
have forsaken Him." The only mitigation of this terrible 
prospect, was a declaration that the king himself would 
be gathered to • his fathers, and to his grave, in peace ; 
that is, before the ruin of the country. He was destined 
to fall in battle, but Judah survived his death for about 
twenty years, so that he was spared from seeing "all 
tlie evil that God would bring on Jerusalem and its 
inhabitants." Personally, he would perish by a violent 
death, brought about by himself ; but he would pass 
away ignorant of what was before his people, and thus 
at peace in his mind, as their king. 

Harsh though the announcement of the prophetess 
proved, Josiah was too sincere in his desire to reform 
the nation, to be turned from his efforts to do so, by 
the dark outlook. He was an enthusiast for what we 
now call Judaism ; nor is it too much, to date the rise 
of that passionate devotion to the Law, in its ritual 
details, which the exiles brought back from their captivity 
in Babylon, to the impulse of the godly and exact king. 
Fourteen years after the finding of the Law he lay 
dead of a wound received at the battle of Megiddo, 
which was fought, to keep faith with Assyria, against 
Egypt, which he hated. 



290 JOSIAH. 

A striking illustration of the thoroughness with which 
Josiah had removed all traces of idolatry from the land 
is ssen in the entire absence of such stone monuments 
as dolmens, cromlechs, and the like, connected with 
heathenism, from the west side of the Jordan, though 
they abound to the east of it. 



y EH 01 A KIM. 

Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, is a striking illustration 
of the contrast we occasionally see between parent and 
child. His father, slain, when scarcely forty, at Megiddo, 
in the battle he had rashly provoked with Egypt, had left, 
so far as we know, three sons, of whom the second was 
chosen by the people as king, under the name of Jehoahaz, 
on his father's death. He was scarcely seated on his 
throne, however, when an Egyptian force appeared, and 
carried him off captive to the Nile, where he died, it is 
not know^n how long after. The eldest son, Eliakim, his 
half-brother, then took his place under the name of 
Jehoiakim. A worse king never sat on the Jewish throne, 
and it may well be that his earlier temporary exclusion 
from it, rose through glimpses of his character having 
made men afraid of him. That Josiah, the good, should 
have been his father, seems strange ; but there may have 
been influences on his mother's side, or in his surroundings, 
that stimulated the worst parts of his nature till they 
choked the better. 

King at the age of twenty-five, Jehoiakim had to submit 
to Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt from the first, and pay him 
a heavy tribute. But this was enough to expose him to 
the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar, who, in B.C. 604, became 
Sultan of Babylon, after having joined in the destruction 

291 



292 JEHOIAKIM. 

of Mneveh, which was followed by his routing iSTecho, 
soon after, and driving him out of Western Asia. 

This took place six years after Jehoiakim's accession, 
and in these years Jeremiah was unwearied in his efforts 
to stem the torrent of evil, which the unworthy king had 
let loose on the nation. Heathenism again flourished, 
though abolished so recently by Josiah ; and, with it, had 
come all the corruption to which it leads. Impurity, 
adultery; lawless oppression of the weak, — whether 
strangers, widows, or orphans, — by the strong ; venality in 
the judges, falsehood, dishonesty, extortion, hard treat- 
ment of poor debtors, robbery, murder, Sabbath desecra- 
tion, and other forms of evil, — were rampant, and gave 
constant subjects for keen addresses and denunciations 
from the fearless prophet. 

That he should predict the ruin of the state as the in- 
evitable end of such a decay of public morality, enraged 
the leaders of society only a little less than his brave 
exposure of their individual wrong-doing. Judah, he 
cried, would assuredly be carried off to Babylon. Egypt 
was no true support. Plots were laid for the faithful 
preacher,^ which he exposed w^ith a bitterness of indigna- 
tion that roused his enemies still more against him."^ Still 
further, dashing a water-bottle to the ground before a 
crowd of citizens, he told them that the nation would be 
shattered as this clay bottle had been. In the very 
Temple, which Jerusalem fancied was, in itself, a security 
that no enemy could take the city it guarded, he repeated 
similar language, kindling such fury against himself, by 
his assailing the holy place thus, that he was seized, 
bastinadoed, and put in the stocks.^ Some time later tlie 

1 Jer. xviii. 18. - Jer. xviii. 19-23. ^ Jer. xx. 2. 



JEHOIAKIM. 293 

priests demanded his death for his fearless language, but 
he defended himself so ably that he escaped. 

Meanwhile, Nineveh had fallen, Necho had been de- 
feated, and Nebuchadnezzar, after returning to Babylon to 
be crowned, w^as on his march to Palestine. As he drew 
near, Jerusalem became the centre to w^hich every one 
who could do so fled for safety, till the population became 
terribly crowded. If Judah did not yield to the Chaldean, 
cried Jeremiah, it would perish. But it was useless to 
urge this any more in mere addresses. He resolved to 
write out all his warnings on a book-roll, and have them 
read publicly to the community. They were, accord- 
ingly, taken down for him, at his dictation, by his friend 
Baruch ; but as Jeremiah did not dare to face the people, 
now so hostile to him, Baruch was asked to recite them to 
the multitude in the Temple, and at last consented to do 
so. A fast had been proclaimed in December, B.C. 604, 
and brought vast crowds to the sanctuary. There the 
prophet's roll w^as read, startling and alarming all by its 
terrible predictions. 

The news spread over the city and reached even the 
king. Perhaps he might at last be aroused, and induced 
to yield peaceably to Nebuchadnezzar, or even to head a 
return to the higher public morals of his father's days. 
But there was nothing in his nature to which to appeal, 
no healthy trait from which a new life might develop 
itself. Although the tribute paid to Egypt was an enor- 
mous burden on so small a state, he had no consideration 
for his people, but wrung from them, by military violence, 
whatever could be extorted, that he might carry out his 
ambition to play the part of a great king. Under the 
very shadow of a Chaldean invasion, he lavished expense 



294 "JEHOIAKIM. 

in adorniDg Jerusalem with costly buildings. A great 
palace, roofed with cedar from Lebanon, lighted by many 
windows, and set off with vermilion, proclaimed his love 
of splendour. Nor was this the only great edifice he 
raised in the city. It added to the guilt of this selfish 
expenditure that not only was the money involved wrung 
from his people ; free citizens and peasants were required 
to do all the work by forced and unpaid labour, and were 
too often worn to death at their tasks. "He built his 
city with blood," says the prophet, " and his citadel with 
iniquity." 

Defiant in his hatred of all warnings, from whatever 
source, Jehoiakim shrank from no crime, to silence the 
faithful witnesses for God. Had he been allowed, he 
would have put Jeremiah to death ; and he actually did 
behead one prophet, Urijah, who had fled to Egypt, but 
was brought back ; his body, as a last indignity, being cast 
into the graves of the common people, and not laid in the 
tombs of the prophets. It was a brave thing to tell such a 
man, of the roll having been read in the Temple, and of 
the excitement its contents had caused. The king's coun- 
sellors, however, having sent for Baruch, and listened, for 
themselves, to a repetition of the whole awful series of 
warnings, determined to bring the matter before Jehoia- 
kim, and to read them to him also. Yet, knowing his 
ferocious temper, they counselled Baruch to go, forthwith, 
to Jeremiah, and, with him, seek safety in concealment. 
This done, they went, with anxious and awed hearts, to 
the private room of the king, in the warmly built winter 
chambers, in the inner court of the palace, leaving the roll 
sn the chief secretary's office. 

It was cold weather, and a brazier, placed in the centre 



JEHOIAKIM. 295 

of the floor, had been lighted in the king's room. Enter- 
ing, they found Jehoiakim reclining beside this, and told 
him of the public reading of the roll, and the commotion 
it had raised. Any hope of his being moved to serious- 
ness by the incident, however, was at once dissipated. He 
must hear for himself all that Jeremiah had ventured to 
say about his policy, or the fate of the city. The roll was 
brought, and an official began to read it aloud. But a few 
columns sufficed to rouse the wild and uncontrollable 
temper of the king. Snatching the book from the hands 
of the reader, and demanding from his secretary a scribe's 
knife, he proceeded, in his blind fury, to cut the long roll 
to pieces, throwing each slip, in succession, on the glowing 
charcoal, till the whole was burned up. No remonstrance 
or entreaty could stop him ; instead of penitence there 
was only malignant rage, and orders were at once given, 
to arrest both Baruch and Jeremiah, who, however, proved 
to have safely hidden th'emselves. 

The prophet heard the news of this outrage in his re- 
treat, but the destruction of the roll only determined him 
to write another, with ominous additions. By the help of 
Baruch this was erelong done, and the written witness 
against the king stood out once more in its awful com- 
pleteness. Jeremiah even ventured to send a message 
from God to the king, telling him that, for his crime in 
refusing to listen to the Divine voice, and in blasphe- 
mously burning the roll, he would have no'son to sit on 
the throne of David, and his dead body would be cast out, 
to lie unburied, in the heat by day and the frost by night ; 
and, moreover, it would be left dishonoured, like the carcass 
of an ass, to rot where it fell, or to be eaten by the dogs. 
Terrified at last, the proud man ultimately yielded, making 



296 JEHOIAKIM. 

submission to Kebuchadnezzar as his vassal, and thus, for 
a time, was able' to retain his throne. Henceforth, how- 
ever, till the tyrant's death, Jeremiah remained silent, 
protected from violence by the high officials whom his 
message had awed. 

But the humiliation of forced vassalage to the Chaldean, 
was more than Jehoialdm could endure. Three years 
later he revolted, and thus finally brought ruin on 
himself and his country. The Chaldean armies were 
still at war with Egypt, and hence within easy distance 
of Jerusalem. The city was at once forced to open its 
gates to Nebuchadnezzar, and the king, after he had 
been put in chains, saved himself from being carried off 
to Babylon only by renewed and more abject submission. 
Still heavier conditions than before were exacted ; and 
the city had to endure the sight of its Temple being 
stripped of the sacred vessels, which were carried off to 
be hung up in the temples of Babylon. What remained 
of Jehoiakim's reign was a succession of troubles. In 
his haughty impotence he would not submit to his 
position, but was continually busied in plots and turbu- 
lence. To check these, local allies of Babylon — the 
Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites — were let loose against 
him, and spread misery over the land. 

At last, in B.C. 598, the Chaldean once more approached 
the Holy City, but before he reached it Jehoiakim had 
perished. How he died is not known, whether in a 
skirmish with raiders or by assassination. No dirge was 
raised for him, so fiercely was he hated ; and, though 
he was the son of the loved Josiah, his body, as the 
prophet had said, was cast out like that of a dead ass, 
and left, dishonoured, on the ground. It was even said 



JEHOIAKTM. 297 

that on the corpse, as it lay naked before all, the name 
of the demon, CoJonazer, to whom he had sold himself, 
appeared stamped in Hebrew letters. Finally, however, 
if w^e may rely on the Greek text, the poor outcast king 
was rescued from his culminating disgrace, and laid 
beside Josiah and Manasseh in the royal tomb. 



JEHOIACHIN. 

Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, succeeded his father on 
the tottering throne of Jerusalem, in the year B.C. 598 
or 597, when he was only eighteen ; and he reigned for 
just about three months, during most of which the Holj 
City was closely invested by the Chaldeans. Utterly 
unable to resist their assaults, Jehoiachin generously 
and bravely resolved to give himself up to them, with 
all his family, that the Temple, with the city and its 
inhabitants, might escape ruin. Xor were the nobles 
and court officials behind him in their voluntary self- 
sacrifice. Little mercy, however, was shown them ; for 
Xebuchadnezzar, who was now with the besieging army, 
sent them off. at once, as captives to Babylon, deporting 
also, with them, the royal harem, the chief men of the 
city, many priests and prophets, seven thousand fighting 
men, and all the mechanics skilled in working metal 
or armour, wood, and stone : at once to weaken Jeru- 
salem and to benefit his own capital. Thirteen thousand 
men, in all, were carried off from Jerusalem and the 
country round. The treasury was also emptied, the 
palace sacked, and the wealth of the Temple seized : but 
after being thus humbled, the city was spared. 

Assuming that it would henceforth be too feeble for 
disloyalty, the conqueror appointed Mattamah, third son 
of Josiali, a voung man of twenty-one, uncle of Jehoiachin, 

298 



JEHOIACHIN. 299 

as the new vassal-king, taking the precaution to make 
him swear by God that he would be faithful to his 
suzerain, and make no alliance with Egypt. But, young 
and inexperienced like his four predecessors, Mattaniah, 
who on his accession changed his name to Zedekiah, 
became the mere puppet of the Egyptian party, as the 
kings immediately before him had been At first, how- 
ever, things went on peacefully ; but Palestine, excited 
by Egyptian intrigues, was still restless ; so that, although 
he had gone to Babylon, to show his fidelity, soon after 
his elevation, Zedekiah gradually, on his return, gave 
way to the Egyptian party in Jerusalem, and in the 
end compromised himself so gravely, that, towards the 
close of the ninth year of his reign, in December, B.C. 
591, the army of Nebuchadnezzar once more sat down 
before the Holy City to besiege it. 

Since the death of Jehoiakim no open violence had 
been shown to Jeremiah, who had remained for the most 
part in Jerusalem, ceaselessly striving to reform the 
community and to preserve loyalty to Chaldea, which 
necessarily brought on him the bitter hostility of those 
who favoured alliance with Egypt. Meanwhile, the 
condition of the city grew daily worse. Moral corruption 
and social anarchy were rampant. Idolatry flourished, 
and the worshippers of Jehovah were few and timid. 
Politically and morally, everything pointed to imminent 
disaster. But the tenacious resistance of the citizens 
delayed for a time the catastrophe. As a whole, they 
favoured Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar's rival, and felt sure 
that a force would be sent from the Nile to relieve them. 
Jeremiah, however, being confident that resistance was 
vain, continually urged prompt submission to Babylon ; 



300 JEHOIACHIN. 

and this not only in public addresses, but to the king 
himself, in his own palace. 

One reform he was able to effect. Many rich citizens 
had made household slaves of large numbers of their 
countrymen and countrywomen ; but the prophet was 
able to rouse the king, for the moment, to take action 
against this enormity, and a formal act of emancipa- 
tion was wrung froDi the slaveholders, when the vote 
of a great assembly of the citizens had condemned them. 
Soon after this, news came that an Egyptian force, in^ 
tended to relieve Jerusalem, was marching into Palestine 
from the south, and the Chaldeans were forced to 
intermit the siege for a time, to repel the invaders. 
Jerusalem hoped, and almost believed, that their dis- 
appearance was final ; but the Egyptians were soon 
driven back and the siege recommenced. In the interval 
of fancied deliverance the wildest disorder prevailed ; 
the freed slaves were once more seized, and lawlessness 
reigned. Still, amidst the wild confusion, the voice of 
Jeremiah was continually heard, urging his one counsel, 
that submission should at once be made to N'ebuchad- 
nezzar, — advice so unpopular as to make him the object 
of nearly universal hatred. 

While the Chaldeans were gone, and egress from the 
city was once more possible, Jeremiah had resolved to 
visit Anathoth, his native village, about four miles north, 
to obtain his local dues as a priest, and thus secure the 
means of subsistence when the Chaldeans returned. He 
had only, however, got to one of the northern gates, 
opening through the walls, when he was stopped by the 
officer of the guard, stationed for the moment at it, and 
found himself charged with the intention of deserting to 



JEHOIACHIN. 301 

the Chaldeans ; the insinuation being implied that he in- 
tended to betray to them the dismal condition of affairs 
in Jerusalem. The hollowness of the accusation was 
evident ; for Nebuchadnezzar's army was, at the moment, 
far away, on its march against Pharaoh-Hophra. But 
the prophet was so intensely unpopular, for his earnest 
advocacy of submission to the Chaldeans, and his denun- 
ciation of Egypt as at once weak and faithless, that the 
most transparent pretext was eagerly seized to lay hands 
on him. 

" You are deserting to the Chaldeans," said the officer. 
" It is a lie," replied Jeremiah, with Oriental bluntness. 
His denial, however, was useless ; and he was led off' to 
the junta of chief men, — the heads of city clans, who ruled 
within the walls as an oligarchy, totally ignoring the 
authority of the weak-minded Zedekiah. As partisans 
of Egypt, these men were the bitterest enemies of the 
prophet. A few years before, the same body had pro- 
tected him ; but his friends apparently had been amongst 
the citizens deported to Babylon. The present junta 
had been bitterly assailed by him. and compared to 
rotten figs, so that his fate was determined beforehand. 
He was at once to receive forty strokes, save one, of the 
stick, — a very severe punishment, — and then to be con- 
fined in an underground prison, in the house of one of 
the number, who seems to have been their secretary. It 
must have been a terrible place, for it is called " the 
house of the pit," and the cells, in one of which he was 
immured, are called " vaults." It seems to have been near 
the south side of the Temple precincts, not far from the 
palace, and was, perhaps, one of the many hidden arches 
by which the surface was raised, at that part, to a level. 



302 JEHOIACHIX. 

The sufferings of the prophet in such a dungeon, amidst 
cold and neglect, were so intense, that it seemed to him 
as if he must die under them. How long he remained 
there is not told, but at last the king, having heard of 
his confinement, to the great joy of the unhappy prisoner, 
sent for him. Completely under the power of the junta, 
Zedekiah had not the courage to set him free, as he mitrht 
have done by a word. Yet he wished much to discover 
if Jeremiah had any message from God, that would 
brighten these dark hours. " Is there any word from 
the Lord ? " asked he, when the prophet had been brought 
to him, into some private chamber. But, sensitive and 
retiring as he was by nature, Jeremiah knew no fear of 
man in discharge of his high office of prophet. Zedekiah 
had his life or death in his hands ; but this did not move 
him. " There is a message for thee," said he. " Thou 
shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon." 
Then, seizing the chance now offered him, he went on : 
" What have I done wrong against thee, or against thy 
servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in 
prison ? Where are now your prophets who said to you, 
' The king of Babylon shall not come against you, or 
against this land ? ' " The wide demoralisation of the 
prophets as a body, at this time ; comparable only to 
that of the clergy in the worst ages of the Church, could 
not have been better shown than by such language. 

But Jeremiah liad not ended. Since these unfaithful 
members of his order had proved their unworthiness, 
and as his own correctness and integrity had, on the 
contrary, been proved by the Chaldeans having invested 
the city, he could at least claim a mitigation of his 
sufferings. " Hear now, I pray thee, my lord the king," 



JEHOIACHIN. 303 

said he ; " let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted 
before thee. I ask that thou cause me not to return to 
the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there." Such 
a request could not be refused ; and orders were given 
to transfer him from his present dungeon to the court 
of the palace guard, where he was to have a piece of 
bread a day, out of the bakers' street, till all the bread 
in the city was spent. In this comparatively easy de- 
tention he remained till the city was taken. 



JEREMIAH DURING THE SIEGE. 

The section of Jeremiah extending from the thirtieth 
to the thirty-third chapters dates from the tenth year 
of King Zedekiah, when Jerusalem had been long invested 
by the terrible army of Nebuchadnezzar, and was very 
near its fall and destruction. The opening verses of 
chapters xxxii. and xxxiii. settle this point with reference 
to themselves, and chapters xxx. and xxxi. are so closely 
connected with them that they seem to have been uttered 
at or about the same date. 

Strange to say, though written from the guard-house 
be'side the king's palace, where the prophet was kept 
a prisoner, no doubt with all the rough discomfort oi 
even positive suffering regarded, in the East, as good 
enough for those charged with any offence, these chapters 
show a bright cheerfulness, in striking contrast to the 
despondency of the greater part of Jeremiah's prophecies. 
Yet he was in the midst of all the miseries of a siege. 
Famine and pestilence were raging in the city ; the 
noise of the battle at the walls, the flight of hostile 
arrows, the thud of battering-rams ; ^ and the flames and 
smoke and roar of fires kindled by the enemy against 
the gates, to burn a way through ; ^ the hurtling of 
great stones through the air from the machines of the 

1 Ezek. iv. 2 ; xxi. 22. 2 jer. li. 58 ; Jud. ix. 48, 49. 

304 



JEREMIAH DURING THE SIEGE. 305 

besiegers ; ^ and the crash of roofs, the screams of terror, 
the groans of the wounded, the outbreak of fire from 
the ruined houses, and, through and over all, the wild 
battle-cries of assailants and defenders, might well have 
deepened his usual depression into despair. On the 
contrary, however, his tone became more hopeful the 
deeper the gloom around, as the stars shine out most 
brightly on the darkest night. 

The demoralisation of all classes of the community 
had, unfortunately, been so extreme in the past, as to 
have drawn down on each, in turn, the sternest denuncia- 
tions of the prophet. The kings, who ought to have 
been shepherds of the people, destroyed and scattered 
them;'^ too many of the prophets were unworthy of 
their calling, and so were too many of the priests. 
" They walked in lies, and strengthened the hands of 
evil-doers, so that all the people of Jerusalem had become 
like those of Sodom and Gomorrah in the eyes of God " ^ 
From the prophets of the capital, pollution had gone 
out all through the whole land.* 'Nor were the priests 
any better.^ The citizens carried off to Babylon with 
King Jehoiachin had been like a basket of June figs, 
the finest and most prized ; the population left behind 
could only be compared to a basket of figs so bad as 
to be uneatable.^ 

Still there were a few among them who were faithful 
to Jehovah, and in them lay the hope of the future. 
Through them religion would revive, in the land of 
exile to which they would soon be swept away, and, 
in spite of the temporary extinction of the state, God 

1 2 Chron. xxvi. 15. ^ jer. xxiii. 1. 3 jgr. xxiii. 13, 14. 

4 Jer. xxiii. 15. ^ Jer. xxiii. 33. « Jer. xxiv. 4-10. 

U 



306 JEIIE.MIAH DURING THE SIEGE. 

would not let His gracious promises to Israel fail, but 
would " bring back again the captivity " of His people 
and cause them to i-eturn to the land He had given 
to their fathers, and they would again possess it.^ 
Babylon and the other nations that had oppressed them 
would be terribly punished, and God would declare 
Himself the God of all the twelve tribes of Israel, who 
would be led back from all lands by Him, with great 
joy ; for Jehovah felt towards them an unchanging and 
everlasting love.^ Preparations for tlieir return were 
to be made across the desert.^ Judah and Samaria 
would alike have a glorious future.* 

The vision had passed before the prophet in sleep, 
and now he awoke ; but his thoughts presently called 
up a new picture, of all the tribes living in peace and 
prosperity, in their own land, as a united people. 
" Behold, the days come," said the heavenly voice in 
his soul, " when I (Jehovah) will sow the house of Israel 
and the house of Judah (as if they were a fruitful 
field), with the seed of man and of cattle. And as I 
have watched over them, to pluck up and root out, 
to desU'oy and consume and afflict, so will I watch over 
them, ^>o build and to plant, says Jehovah." Like all 
others, in every age, they had, in their self-righteousness, 
blamed every one but themselves for their sufferings, 
flattering their souls that they paid the penalty of the 
sins of their forefathers, and were themselves victims 
rather than justly punished. 

It was, indeed, an article in their theology that the 
sins of one generation were visited on another, however 

1 Jer, XXX. 1-3. 2 Jer. xxxi. 1-14. 

3 Jer. xxxi. 21, 22. 4 jer. xxxi. 23-25. 



JEREMIAH DUPJNG THE SIEGE. 307 

innocent. Canaan had been cursed for the sin of the 
son of Noah.^ The grandsons of Saul had been put 
to death for the offence of their grandfather, with which 
they could not possibly have had anything to do.'^ A 
psalmist cried out, " Let the iniquity of his fathers be 
remembered with the Lord ; and let not the sin of his 
another be blotted out." ^ Job had said tliat " God layeth 
up (the punishment of) the iniquity of the wicked for 
his children/' and Jeremiah himself* calls for Divine 
retribution on the children of his enemies. iMit he 
now presents another side of the truth, as Ezekiel also 
had done, on the banks of the Chebar, in the same 
years.^ Henceforth there was to be no escape from 
individual reponsibility, and the son would not bear 
the sins of the father, if he abstained from his father's 
sins. This grand doctrine, however, was not accepted 
by any means generally, even in the days of Christ ; 
for His disciples asked Him whether the blind man 
himself, in some former state, or his parents, had sinned, 
that he should have been born blind ; ^ and the crowd, 
eager to crucify our Lord, cried out, " His blood be on us, 
and on our children." '' But Jeremiah anticipates that, in 
those days when the twelve tribes had returned, they 
would no longer say, '' The fathers have eaten sour grapes, 
and the children's teeth are set on edge." But every one 
should die for his own iniquity, — every man who ate sour 
grapes, his teeth should be set on edge. 

With this higher moral tone, and realisation of in- 
dividual reponsibility, there would begin, in all other 
things, a new era of a loftier and purer religious life. 

^ Gen. ix. 24, 25. - 2 Sam, xxi. 3 pg_ ^ix. 14. ^ jer. xviii. 21. 

5 Ezek. xviii. « John ix. 2. 7 Matt, xxvii. 25. 



308 JEEExMIAH DTJKING THE SIEGE. 

The Law of Moses had required love to God and to our 
neighbour.^ Indeed, in Deuteronomy, love is named as 
a religious duty and joy, twelve times ; and hence, even 
if we were to suppose those right who think that book 
dates from the time of Josiah, a clear proclamation of 
the highest ideal of our relations to God and man was an 
early heritage of Israel. Jeremiah, however, like Ezekiel, 
brings it forward as a new covenant, contrasting it, in 
doing so, with the covenant of Moses, which had come 
to be regarded as enforcing only ritual and ceremonial 
ordinances, and thus had largely failed in keeping alive a 
vigorous spiritual life in the nation. But when the tribes 
have returned, says Jeremiah, " Behold, I shall make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, says Jehovah ; 
and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I 
made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand, 
to lead them out from the land of Egypt ; which covenant 
they broke, though I had been as kind and tender and 
faithful to them as a husband is to his bride. 

" But this is the covenant I will make with the house 
of Israel after those days, says Jehovah : I will put My 
law in their inmost parts, and write it on their hearts ; 
and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 
And they will no longer need to teach, every man his 
neighbour and every man his brother, saying, 'Know 
Jehovah ; ' for they shall all know Me, from the lowest 
to the greatest; and I will forgive their iniquity, and I 
will remember their sin no more." The covenant at 
Sinai, written on tables of stone, had rested on fear ; the 
new covenant, written on the heart, would rest on love. 
The only true foundation of religion, worthy the name, 

1 Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 8. 



JEREMIAH DURING THE SIEGE. 309 

was thus, once more, brought before Israel by the prophet, 
though it had never been quite forgotten ; for Samuel had 
set mercy and obedience, before any sacrifices of rams 
or other creatures, and the words of Balaam had been 
remembered, and were quoted by Micah, " What, man, 
doth God require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God ? " Jeremiah and the 
other prophets, however, set it more and more in the most 
prominent light, as in these verses, though it was our 
Lord who, finally, for ever set aside the merely external, 
as, in itself, of moral worth, and taught that he, only, 
truly worshipped the Father, who did so in sincerity and 
in truth. 

Jeremiah's confidence in the fulfilment of all he had 
said was unshaken by the circumstances of the moment. 
" Thus says Jehovah," he continued, " who appointed the 
sun for light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and 
stars for a light by night ; who throws the sea into com- 
motion, so that its waves roar : if these ordinances fail 
from before Me, so will Israel cease to be a nation." But, 
of course, they could not fail, and neither would God's 
people perish. " If heaven above can be measured," he 
went on, " and the foundations of the earth be searched 
out, God would reject Israel; but as heaven cannot be 
measured, and the foundations of the earth cannot be 
searched out, He would not only not reject them, but 
would keep His covenant with them for ever." 



JEREMIAH AT THE FALL OF THE CITY. 

The mitigation of Jeremiah's sufferings, by his being 
removed from the dungeon to the court of the palace 
guard, proved a doubtful benefit. In the one he might 
be in physical misery, but he was safe from his greatest 
danger, the irrepressible boldness of his speech ; in the 
other, he had no bodily sufferings, but his words made 
enemies on every side, eager and able to harm him. 

The Egyptian party still controlled both the king and 
the town, and would allow no criticism of their policy. 
The prophet, however, was reported to them as having 
said that to stay in the town was to die, to go out to the 
Chaldeans was to live, and that the town would certainly 
be taken. He was instantly denounced to the king by 
the junta, and his death demanded. He was a traitor, 
discouraging the fighting men and the citizens. 

Zedekiah would not let them kill him; but, short of 
this, he was in their hands. Seizing him forthwith, he 
was put into a great, underground, bottle-shaped rain- 
cistern, the bottom of which was deep with foul mud, 
and here he must soon have died if not delivered. Though 
treated thus by his own people, however, a [N'ubian eunuch 
proved his friend, and, having obtained permission from 
the king, drew him out of his hideous dungeon. 

Meanwhile, the siege grew daily more calamitous. The 
plague raged in the town, the dead could not be buried 

310 



JEllEMIAH AT THE FALL OF THE CITY. 311 

nor the wounded cared for ; the streets were crowded 
with contending factions, the roar of attack and defence 
filled the air, and famine darkened into cannibalism. 
Zedekiah, appalled at such a stage of things, once more 
sent for Jeremiah, who had long seen that the unfortunate 
king was a mere puppet in the hands of the Egyptian 
faction, and needed only to flee to the Chaldean camp, 
and explain matters, to secure his personal safety. This 
he repeated to him now, adding that nothing else would 
save either the town, his family, or himself; but he had not 
decision of character enough to carry out the prophet's 
counsel. " He would 1 e handed over," he said, "by the 
Chaldeans, to the Jewish deserters, and ill used by them." 
In vain the prophet assured him that his fears were 
groundless, and even rallied him on his weakness, for 
which, he said, even his wives and attendants would mock 
him. But his soul was paralysed by fear of the junta. 
Jeremiah must say, if asked, that he had sought the king, 
only to request that he should not be sent back to his 
first dungeon. 

Meanwhile, the siege continued. But though the 
prophet proclaimed the near fall of the city, he was 
equally certain that it would one day rise again from its 
ashes, and that, though the people would be carried away 
captive, they would hereafter return and enjoy a bright 
future. To impress his confidence on his countrymen, he 
chose this time of nearly universal despair to buy a piece 
of ground near Anathoth, which his cousin wished to sell, 
causing two copies of the deed to be written, and the 
signatures of witnesses to be duly appended. It was a 
noble example of unshaken trust in the destinies of his 
people. 



312 JEREMIAH AT THE FALL OF THE CITY. 

The siege had begun in the close of B.C. 591, and, 
though interrupted for a time by the advance of Pharaoh- 
Hophra, now raged more fiercely than ever. The thud 
of the battering-rams shook the walls, stones and arrows 
rained down into the streets, mines were pierced below 
the defences, and burning darts showered thick at every- 
thing inflammable. But the defence was equally stre- 
nuous, i^ew walls rose inside every breach, archers and 
slingers fought vigorously on the walls, the rams were 
caught by chains or ropes, flaming torches were hurled on 
the wooden roofs of the war- machines, and the gates 
strengthened in every way possible. But Jerusalem was 
doomed. The pestilence spread, and mothers ate their 
own children in the agonies of hunger, while, to add to 
the misery, bloody fights took place, daily, between oppos- 
ing factions. 

The end came at last, after the siege had continued 
eighteen months. Under cover of the night, the Chal- 
deans delivered the final assault on the ninth of the 
month Tammuz, nearly our July, and, after a terrible 
struggle, forced their way into the town. The deafening 
uproar told Zedekiah that all was over. His only hope 
of escape lay in flight. The enemy had entered by the 
north wall, the one place where there is level ground 
outside ; and the palace was on Ophel, the southern part 
of the Temple hilL There the town gate, at the south-east 
corner of the walls, was still free. If Zedekiah and those 
round him, escaping through this, could reach the other 
side of the Jordan, they might elude the Chaldeans. 
Hurrying out, therefore, and crossing Hinnom or Kedron, 
and climbing the slopes beyond, they pressed on, over the 
wild, broken, desolation of the wilderness of Judea, 



JEREMIAH AT THE FALL OF THE CITY. Sl6 

towards the south-east. But it was impossible to make 
progress over such a country in the darkness, and they 
therefore had to turn east towards the plain of the 
Jordan. 

Meanwhile, the king's flight was discovered, and troops 
sent in hot pursuit of him. The steep defile of the Wady 
Kelt resounded with the clatter of cavalry, stumbling 
down the pass in speediest haste. The fugitives had not 
reached the Jordan before they were overtaken ; but the 
mere sound of the pursuit at once scattered those around 
the king, in tumultuous flight for life. Zedekiah, however, 
with a number of his chief men, was taken prisoner, 
though his daughters escaped for the time. The poor 
king, chained ignominiou^ly, was brought back to Jeru- 
salem, and thence marched off to Eiblah, a place ten days' 
journey to the north, where Nebuchadnezzar had his 
headquarters for the time. 

At Eiblah, Zedekiah was brought into the presence of 
the Great King, with his fellow-captives. Had he taken 
the counsel of Jeremiah, and come voluntarily, at an 
earlier date, it would have saved him ; for he might then 
have pleaded that he had acted under compulsion in 
breaking his oath. As it was, he had to listen to a fierce 
denunciation of his perjury, and saw that his doom was 
fixed. All the chief men taken with him were ordered 
to be instantly put to death. N"ext came the turn of his 
own sons, who were speared or beheaded in his presence. 
It was the last sight on which he was ever to look, and 
must have been burned into his memory in every horrible 
detail. His sons all killed, a spear or a knife presently 
blinded him for ever. But he had only begun the 
descending stages of his humiliation. Chained hand and 



314 JEREMIAH AT THE FALL OF THE CITY. 

foot, with his eyes bleeding, and a ring thrust through 
his lips, he was shut up in a cage and carried off to 
Babylon, to be paraded before its population, and then 
thrust into a dungeon till he died. Jehoiachin, his pre- 
decessor, was in a Babylonian prison already, to remain 
there till set free again by Evil-Merodach, twenty-six 
years later; but Zedekiah had then, apparently, been 
long dead. 

The Temple still held out after the town had fallen, and 
defied the Chaldeans for another month. Then, at last, it 
also fell, and no mercy was shown defenders who had 
cost the assailants so much. There was no longer any 
pity for a town which had been so long troublesome, and 
whose population was so stubborn in their resistance. It 
was given up to plunder, and burned to the ground ; the 
Temple sharing the same fate. Its very stones, indeed, 
were thrown into the hollows beside the Temple hill, 
where many of them still lie, buried under a vast depth 
of rubbish. It had been stripped of everything worth 
seizing before it was destroyed, and the sacred vessels 
carried off, to be displayed in the temples of the gods of 
Babylon. The quiet country-folk around were alone left 
in the land, the townspeople being marched off to the 
Euphrates. Jerusalem lay desolate. The Jewish state 
had for the time perished. 



RETROSPECT. 

It is very striking to notice how exactly and minutely the 
office, character, and teachings of Christ are shadowed out 
by many passages in the Old Testament. The earlier 
prophets had confined themselves to spoken addresses, so 
that, from Samuel to Amos, we have little more than 
fragmentary utterances, preserved only from their connec- 
tion with some historical incident, though even in these, 
the grand features of later and fuller discourses of their 
successors are strikingly anticipated. In contrast to the 
importance so easily laid, in a priestly and ritual service, 
on due fulfilment of prescribed observances, even Samuel 
— the virtual founder of the order of prophets, as we know 
them — asks Saul if the Lord has " as great delight in 
burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of 
the Lord," adding, " Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to hearken than the fat of rams."^ 

Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets of the northern 
kingdom, left nothing in writing. But from their time 
the prophetical office passed into a new phase. Till their 
day it had been largely associated with symbolical action 
and physical excitement. The prophet had taken an active 
part in public affairs, and had been often a prominent 
actor in political crises. With Isaiah, the tempest, and 
earthquake, and lightnings of Horeb, and the slaughter 

1 1 Sam. XV. 22. 
315 



316 EETROSPECT. 

of Carmel, had finally given place to the still small voice 
of the teacher. The pen records the prophetic words, and 
these embody conceptions and visions of ever-increasing 
spirituality and nobleness. 

Thus, in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, we have a 
picture of the future of Israel, which, in its lofty spiritual 
beauty, prefigures wondrously the characteristics of the 
glorious and unsufFering kingdom of Christ, and the 
sublime features of His own personality. The shoot from 
the decayed stock of Jesse, and the green sucker springing 
from its roots, are painted in language applied to our Lord 
in many verses of the N"ew Testament. Thus St. John 
repeats the name, " The Eoot of David." ^ St. Paul ^ applies 
the whole passage to Christ. St. Matthew draws from it 
the reason of His being called a Nazarene.^ St. Paul 
quotes it, in one of its details,* and other allusions offer 
themselves in the references given in our Bibles. 

In Isaiah xxvi. 1-10, the song put by the prophet in the 
mouth of "the. land of Judah," after its deliverance from 
its enemies round about it, is no less suited for a chant 
of triumph, at the establishment among mankind of the 
kingdom of our Lord, in which the soul may well find its 
strong city, with salvation appointed for its walls and 
bulwarks. Into it, in a truer sense than into the ancient 
Jerusalem, the righteous nation that keeps loyally to God 
may enter, and the Christian may well feel that Jehovali 
will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
Him, because he trusts in Him, and that in the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength, worthy of our trust 
for ever. 

1 Rev. V. 5. 2 Acts xiii. 23. 

s Matt. ii. 2,3. ■* 2 Thess. ii. 8. 



RETROSPECT. 317 

The denunciation of Samaria for its drunkenness i is a 
lesson for our own times as much as for those of the 
])rophet ; for, though strong drink may not be so much 
the besetting sin of our rulers or teachers, as it was in the 
last days of the northern kingdom, among the same classes, 
it yet saps national strength to a degree almost beyond 
realisation. Nor can it be less the duty of the prophets 
of our time, to make a stand against so great an evil, than 
it was in the days of Isaiah. With us, as much as with 
the faithful of the old Jewish Church, the ideal of noble 
self-devotion, in the circumstances around us, is, assuredly, 
that we, like the prophets, keep far from any kind of 
intoxicating drink. 

There is no incident in Old Testament history more 
striking than that of Hezekiah's deliverance from the 
Assyrian army. His spreading the great king's letter 
" before the Lord," as actually inhabiting the Temple, and 
sitting between the cherubim in the dark Holy of Holies, 
is well fitted to make us grateful that, under Christ's 
teaching, we have no longer such local and limited concep- 
tions of the presence of the Eternal, but can rejoice that 
He is to be found wherever He is worshipped in spirit 
and in truth. Yet Hezekiah's conception of God, as ruliug 
over all the kingdoms of the earth, and as having made 
heaven and earth, is vastly in advance of that of Jacob, 
who was astonished to find Him at Bethel as well as at 
Beersheba. The monuments illustrate Hezekiah's state- 
ment that the Assyrians burned the gods of the nations 
they conquered, or broke them up; representations of 
their doing so being found on the slabs from Nineveh in 
the British Museum. 

^ Isa. xxviii. 1-13. 



dl8 RETKOSPECT. 

By " the servant of Jehovah," of whom Isaiah so often 
speaks, it would seem that, at times, Israel collectively is 
meant, in the same way as the Virgin Mary says, " He 
hath holpen his servant Israel ; " ^ while at other times the 
prophet applies the name to himself, or to some other 
person, varying in different cases. In Isaiah ^ it is 
applied to one whose visage had been marred till it was 
not like that of a man, his form, also, being made, by ill- 
treatment, unlike the sons of men. But in the close of 
the preceding chapter, we find the sufferings and ill-usage 
of Israel in captivity compared to a " cup of trembling " 
and " the dregs of the cup of the fury of God," which may 
well be regarded as equivalent to the " marring " and 
maltreatment of the " Servant of Jehovah." Yet nothing, 
in many of the details, more exactly describes the suffer- 
ings, work, and triumph of our Lord, than this fifty-third 
chapter, which is, hence, with great appropriateness, ap- 
plied to Him, as " the Servant of Jehovah " in an altogether 
special sense. 

In the fifty-fifth chapter, originally addressed to the 
captives of Babylon, we have, in the same way, language 
than which nothing could be more fitting, as a gracious 
call to leave, not the earthly Babylon, but the captivity 
to sin in which all men lie till freed by the grace of God. 
The lofty, moral tone of the prophets is vividly shown in 
the new covenant, promised by Jeremiah, to be written 
by God in the hearts of His people, when He had restored 
them from exile. Spiritual religion, not legal obser- 
vances, in which they had hitherto trusted far too much, 
woula mark that happy time. Unfortunately the days 
have nci yet come when it can be said that it is no longer 

1 Luke i. 54. 2 lii 14^ 



RETROSPECT. 319 

necessary to teach any one to " know the Lord, since all 
know Him, from the least to the greatest." N^or does there 
seem any close approach to it, either in the Jewish world 
or outside its limits. 

Jehoiakim's wickedness, in burning the roll of the 
prophet's utterances, must have seemed almost inconceiv- 
ably dreadful ; for a holy man, speaking for God, was, in 
antiquity, as he still is in the East, one whose every word, 
claiming to be inspired, is heard w^ith awe. It is no 
w^onder that h^s contemporaries believed he had sold him- 
self to the evil one, and that the name of the demon who 
had bought him — Codonazer — was found branded on the 
skin of his dishonoured corpse. 

The ruin of Judah under Zedekiah was inevitable. 
Assyria and Babylon had alike tried the plan of leaving 
Jerusalem to be a buffer between Egypt and Western 
Asia, which the Pharaohs constantly sought to win back 
from the powers on the Euphrates. But, over and again, 
Judah betrayed both Mneveh and Chaldea, taking sides 
with Egypt, its nearest neighbour. In the case of Zede- 
kiah, his offence was especially great, as ^Nebuchadnezzar 
had made him swear by " Elohim " to be faithful. Yet it 
seems as if weakness, rather than treachery, led to his 
disastrous breach of faith ; for he was evidently cowed by 
the camarilla which ruled in Jerusalem, and declared for 
Egypt, without consulting the prophet. 

Nor had he moral courage enough to go out and give 
himself up to the Babylonians, though Jeremiah told him 
he would be spared if he did so. A stronger character 
might have saved Judah, as well as his own dynasty. 



IN EXILE. 

About five months after the city had been taken, the news 
of the fall of Jerusalem reached the Jewish settlements 
on the Khabour — -a river of Mesopotamia, flowing mainly 
south, and falling into the Euphrates at Carchemish — the 
capital of the great Hittite empire of early days — Nineveh 
lying about a hundred and thirty miles east of the 
middle of its course. 

Now, for the first time, after an enforced silence of 
years, Ezekiel was free to speak, the fulfilment of his pre- 
dictions silencing his opponents. The remnant left in 
Judea still hoped to re-establish the state, but they 
speedily sank into anarchy and violence, culminating in 
the murder of Gedaliah, the Chaldean governor, and the 
flight of the best of the people to Egypt. No hope of the 
restoration of the land could be expected from such a 
source.^ Meanwhile, those round the prophet crowded to 
hear him, but only from curiosity. Insincere and obdu- 
rate, they listened with affected interest, only to disregard 
and forget. Yet he felt assured of better days, and a re- 
turn of the nation to its own land ; but for this a higher 
moral tone among them was needed. 

He first, therefore, reminded them, once more, of his 
obligation, as a true prophet, to expose their shortcomings, 
that they might escape further judgment, assuring them 

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 24-29. 
320 



IN EXILE. 321 

that God had no pleasure in the death of the wicked, hut 
desired that he should turn from his way and live.^ If a 
good man turned to sin, the lapse was fatal ; if the wicked 
turned to what was just and right, he would live. High 
and low were warned with equal fidelity. 

As in Oriental communities generally, the officials of 
every rank were sadly corrupt. Shepherds of the people, 
they sought the wool, and cared nothing for the sheep. 
But God, said the prophet, would come against them, and 
require His flock at their hand. Scattered in heathen lands. 
He would gather His exiles, and lead them back to the 
mountains of Israel , and there, instead of the worthless 
kings and underlings they had had. He Himself would be 
their God, and His servant David their prince. They would 
thenceforth dwell in peace and safety, in their own land : 
the rains falling in their season, the trees and the fields 
yielding their fruit, national freedom secure, all enemies 
humbled, and prosperity filling every heart with gladness.^ 

Edom, the hereditary enemy of Israel, had gloried in 
the fall of Jerusalem, and had taken an eager part in 
bringing it about, but would now be made waste and 
desolate, after being driven from the part of Judea which 
it for the time held, so that no more fear would be felt on 
its account. Its towns would be laid in ruins, and its 
mountains filled with slain.^ But while their foes would 
drain the cup of sorrow which they had forced Israel to 
drink, God would exceedingly bless His own land, to which 
He had led back the nation from Babylon. 

In the rest of the thirty-sixth chapter he thus speaks : 
* But ye, mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your 

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 1-11. 2 Ezek. xxxiv. 1-31. 

3 Ezek. XXXV. ; xxxvi. 1-7. 

X 



322 IN EXILE. 

verdure, and yield your fruits to My people Israel ; for 
they shall soon come (from exile). For behold, I am for 
you, and will turn to you, and ye shall be ploughed and 
sown. And I will increase men on you, even all the house 
of Israel, and the towns will be inhabited, and the ruins 
rebuilt. And I will increase cattle as well as men on you, 
and they will multiply and be fruitful ; and I will settle 
you t--s in former times, and will even do better by you 
than in your earlier days ; and thus shall ye know that I 
am Jehovah. I will make men — my people Israel — walk 
on you ; and they will possess you, and you will be their 
inheritance, and you will no more be left without men (O 
land of Israel). 

" Thus says the Lord God : ' Because they say to you, 
" Thou, land, devourest up men, and hast made thy peoples 
childless," therefore thou shalt no longer do so,' saith 
Jehovah. I^or will I cause you to bear the shame of the 
heathen any more, nor the reproach of the peoples ; nor 
wilt thou cause thy children to stumble any more, saith 
the Lord. 

" Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying : 
Son of man, when Israel dwelt in their own land, they de- 
filed it by their doings, and their conduct was utterly vile 
in My eyes. For this cause I poured out My wrath on 
them, for the blood they had shed in their land, and for 
their foul idolatry. And I scattered them among the 
heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries. 
I judged them according to their way and their acts." 
Israel had thus brought its exile on itself by its sins, but 
the heathen imputed their calamities to the weakness of 
their God, and thus profaned the Divine name. 

" But when they were carried to heathen lands, they 



IN EXILE. 32 



Q 



made My holy name to be dishonoured ; for men said of 
them, These are the people of Jehovah, and yet they are 
driven out of His land. But now I must vindicate My holy 
name thus discredited." Their deliverance from Babylon 
would be due to no merit of theirs, but for God's own 
honour. " Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says 
the Lord : I do this not for your sakes, but for My holy 
name's sake, which you have caused to be dishonoured 
among the heathen. I shall, therefore, vindicate My great 
name, that the heathen may know that I am Jehovah, 
when I shall show Myself holy in you^ (by keeping My 
covenant with you), before their eyes. For I will take 
you out from among the heathen, and gather you from all 
countries, and bring you again to your own land." 

But the old relations of God with them could not be 
restored till they turned sircerely to His service, and this 
change of heart must come from God Himself. From Him 
alone could that grace flow, which would wash away the 
past, and secure a nobler life for the future. They had 
trusted in rites and forms, but these were worthless in 
themselves. The true religion which God demanded, re- 
quired the love and service of their hearts. "And that 
you may be cleansed from your sins I will, (as it were), 
sprinkle clean water, (the symbol of My purifying grace), 
on you, and cleanse you from all your filthiness and 
idolatry. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new 
spirit within you ; and will take away your stony heart, 
and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit 
in you, and thus cause you to walk in My statutes and 
keep My laws. And you shall dwell, (as a people thus 
purified), in the land I gave to your fathers, and ye shall 
be My people and I will be your God." 



324 ' IN EXILE. 

The grace of God would henceforth keep them from turn- 
ing again to their old evil ways, and God would bless their 
country, and crown them with favour. But all this, they 
must remember, was of His free grace, not for their own 
desert. " I will keep you from falling into your old sins, 
and I will call forth corn (out of the earth) and make it 
yield richly, and preserve you from famine. And I will 
increase the fruit of the tree, and the yield of the ground, 
that the reproach of famine be no more cast on you by 
the heathen. And in those days you will remember your 
evil ways and wrong doings, and abhor yourselves for your 
iniquities and abominations. But be it known unto you, 
that it is not for your sakes I do this, says the Lord ; be 
ashamed and blush for your ways, house of Israel. 

" Thus says the Lord, When I have cleansed you from 
all your iniquities, I will cause you to dwell in your towns 
and rebuild the ruins. And the land, now desolate, will 
be tilled again, — the land that lies desolate before all that 
pass by. And then will men say, ' This land, once deso- 
late, is become like the garden of Eden ; the forsaken and 
ruined towns are walled round and inhabited.' Then the 
heathen, left round you, will know that I, Jehovah, did all 
this ; I have said it, and will do it. Thus says the Lord, 
I will yet be sought (in prayer) by the house of Israel, to 
do this for them, (and, in answer to their supplications), I 
will increase them with men like a flock, — like the flock 
for the holy offerings, the flock at Jerusalem in the time 
of her feasts ; her towns now deserted will be filled with 
flocks of men, and all shall know that I am Jehovah." 



A PROPHETS PICTURE OF THE RETURN. 

With the fortieth chapter of Isaiah a new section com- 
mences, which extends to the end of the book. It is 
throughout a sublime message of comfort from God to His 
people, then in exile on the Euphrates. They would as- 
suredly be led back to their own land by Jehovah Him- 
self ; and there a future, glorious beyond thought, awaited 
them. But the great deliverance and the subsequent 
glory, are held out only to those who, through all the 
dark hours of exile and distance from the holy place, had 
remained faithful to God and their ancient faith, not to 
such as had virtually apostatised and denied Jehovah, 
alike in word and deed, acting as if they were heathen, 
like their captors, not Hebrews. 

In the fortieth chapter the prophet announces himself 
as commanded by Him who created the heavens and the 
earth, to proclaim the near approaching deliverance. 
" Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, (0 ye prophets); saith 
your God." Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry to 
her, that her hard service (of affliction and calamity) is 
accomplished ; that (the penalty of) her iniquity is paid ; 
that she has been fully punished, and (for all her suffer- 
ings) will receive double compensation at the hand of God. 

This summons on the part of Jehovah is presently 
obeyed. Amidst the stillness that follows the heavenly call, 
the voice of a prophet is heard crying aloud : " Prepare 

325 



326 A prophet's picture of the return. 

ye in the wilderness a way for Jehovah ; make level and 
smooth, in the desert, a highway for our God. Every 
valley will be filled up, and every mountain and hill made 
low, and the rocky places shall be made a level table-land, 
and the rough places a plain." In the East there are no 
roads ; and it is therefore necessary to make special pre- 
parations, when any great personage is travelling, to secure 
him a pleasant progress. Great numbers of men are sent 
along the track over which he is to pass, to fill up hollows, 
to remove or bury obstructions, and to make a temporary 
smoothness before him. Thus, says the prophet, is it to 
be, on the grandest scale, before Jehovah, who is about to 
set out, at the head of His returning exiles, towards their 
own land. 

The voice then continues : " And the glory of Jehovah 
will reveal itself." Jehovah will appear in heavenly 
majesty, now, when the way is prepared, to lead home 
His people; and this Divine splendour will be seen by 
all the world, — " all flesh shall see it ; for the mouth of 
Jehovah hath spoken," — and His word, having been given, 
thus, that He would free His people. He would assuredly 
do so. Faint hearts among the exiles, however, were 
ready to think deliverance from so mighty a power as 
Babylon impossible. But this the prophet is directed to 
prove idle and weak, by reminding them that man, at his 
greatest, is only like the grass, whereas Jehovah, who is 
their head, is the almighty God. The Voice said, " Cry 1 " 
And the prophet said, "What shall I cry?" "Say," 
answered the voice, " All flesh is grass, and all the good- 
liness thereof is as the flower of the field ; the grass 
withereth, the flower fadeth, because the wind — the 
breath of*God— bloweth upon it. So, verily, the people 



A prophet's picture of the return. 327 

is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the 
word of our God, (His promise to free us and lead us home), 
shall stand for ever." 

The prophet now supposes news to have reached Jeru- 
salem that God was on the way, before His people, or 
would soon be so. The Holy City is apostrophised, and 
called upon to announce to the towns of Judah, that the 
exiles are near at hand. " Get up into thy high mountain, 
Zion, that proclaimest good tidings ; lift up thy voice 
with all thy might, Jerusalem ; lift it up, be not afraid. 
Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God ! Lo, there ! 
He Cometh, leading on His people to thee." Zion may 
well do this ; for it is a certainty that God will thus dis- 
play His loving power. " Behold, the Lord Jehovah will 
come in (His) strength," controlling, leading, protecting, — a 
mighty one, whom none can resist or stop. " His arm 
rules for Him," He uses its irresistible power to secure 
the triumphant return of Israel. *' Behold, His reward is 
with Him, and His recompense before His eyes." 

Then follows a touching Oriental picture of their advance 
over the desert to Canaan, following Jehovah, who goes 
before them, as a shepherd goes before his flock in those 
countries. " He shall feed (or pasture) His flock like a 
shepherd : He shall gather the lambs in His arms, and carry 
them in His bosom, and shall gently lead the ewes that 
have young at their side." 

No language could better set forth the relation of God 
to His Church in our own day. Instead of Jerusalem and 
Israel, the fold of Christ is destined, we are told, to em- 
brace all peoples over the earth. The way for the Gospel 
needs to be prepared ; but if we do our part, the glory of 
the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it. Nor 



328 



A PROPHET S PICTURE OF THE RETURN". 



is there reason to be afraid of any difficulties or hin- 
drances. All that can oppose is only like the grass or the 
frail flower, which is scorched by a passing wind ; whereas 
we have the word of Him who cannot lie^ as our security 
for the triumph of His kingdom among men. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS, 

The promises to the Hebrew exiles, of God's gracious 
favour after their return to their own land, like other 
portions of Isaiah, illustrate with equal force and beauty 
the rise and glory of the kingdom of Christ, alike as a 
whole and in its individual triumphs, though originally 
addressed to the captives on the Euphrates, as a revela- 
tion of His gracious design to favour His people, and 
crown them with future honour, by leading them back 
to Palestine and rebuilding Jerusalem. 

Thus, in his fifty-fourth chapter, the prophet cheers 
the hearts of his countrymen, amidst the depression 
which was sinking almost to hopelessness, through the 
long delay in their deliverance from their oppressors, 
by the assurance that Israel would yet have a glorious 
future, with a larger population and wider territories 
than in the past.^ Their shame would pass away and 
be forgotten, and they would see how God had afflicted 
them, for a moment, for their good, that He might, when 
they sought Him in penitence, crown them with pitying 
love that would, thenceforth, never be clouded. Jeru- 
salem would yet be rebuilt, in glory only to be imagined 
by picturing a city whose stones would be set in fair 
colours ; whose battlements would be of rubies, whose 
gates would be carbuncles, and whose border would be 

1 Isa. liv. 1-3. 
329 



330 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

of pleasant stones.^ No weapon formed against it would 
prosper, and its citizens would rejoice in unbroken peace.^ 
But with hearts so gloomy, and often, no doubt, 
apathetic, it was hard to rouse an enthusiasm in these 
prophetic visions. Too many were contented with their 
lot. Many of them might, indeed, sigh at the remem- 
brance of the land of their fathers, but their grief was 
largely sentimental. Babylon was a far richer country 
than Judea. They were prospering in it. To return to 
Palestine would be to face privation, and fight with a 
host of difficulties. The well-to-do Jews of London or 
New York are not less inclined to set off for the Holy 
Land to-day than were their ancestors in Babylon, as a 
rule ; for only a very few could be induced to go back 
when permission to do so was finally granted by Cyrus. 
The prophet seeks to rouse them to a better mood. Their 
material comforts and prosperity were not worthy to 
engross theni.^ After all, they were weighing out their 
money for that which was not bread, and spending their 
gains on that which brought no real satisfaction. Let 
them listen to him, and turn zealously to Jehovah ; cast- 
ing in their lot with those who feared His name, and 
they would have a reward far richer than the corn and 
the wine of Babylon could yield. If they really thirsted 
thus for the favour of God, the prophet could promise 
them blessings more grateful than water in the desert ; 
blessings so abundant that they would be like the 
outburst of copious fountains, from which all could take 
freely, without stint ; blessings which might, indeed, be 
compared to the free and rich supply to all, of wine and 
milk, without money and without price. Jehovah, he 

1 Isa. liv. 11, 12. ^ Vers. 13, 17. =^ Isa. Iv. 1, 2. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. . 331 

says, bids him say in His name : " Incline your ear, and 
come unto Me" — be no longer indifferent and deaf to 
My call , " hear, and your soul shall live," — turn to Me 
with hearty loyalty, willing to be My people in truth. 

The mass of the exiles, as I have said, were far from 
enthusiastic in devotion to Jehovah. But with those 
who showed themselves zealous for the restoration of 
God's kingdom on Mount Zion He would make an ever- 
lasting covenant • the abiding mercies He showed to 
David. That is. He would give them, as His people, the 
power, dominion, and glory which He had given to the 
4iero-king. "Behold, I have given him" — David, the king 
— " a witness to the peoples," — that is, a lawgiver, — " a 
leader and commander to the peoples ; " and so shall 
Israel again be, if it seek and follow Me. " Behold, 
thou," Israel, wilt be so mighty, like David, that thou 
shalt summon outlying nations, strangers to thee, to 
submit to thy rule, and forthwith they " shall run unto 
thee," to cast themselves at thy feet. Israel will be able 
to do this " because of Jehovah its God, and for the 
Holy One of Israel ; for He hath glorified thee," showing 
Himself so mighty and gracious a Protector of His people. 

But it was hard to move the cold ung-odliness of the 
exiles, and therefore the prophet once more appeals to 
them : " Seek ye," then '' Jehovah while He may be found." 
He is near now ; near to deliver His own from Babylon. 
Seek Him by earnest prayer and true honour of His laws. 
" Call ye upon Him while He is near : let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : 
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have 
mercy upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly 
pardon." The demand for the religion of the heart, and 



332 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

not merely performance of outward rites, is very striking. 
Sincere godliness is the condition of the gracious assur- 
ances vouchsafed, being fulfilled, — a condition necessary 
alike under the old and the new dispensation, and as true 
under Christ as under the Jewish Church ; as truly 
addressed, moreover, to every " unrighteous man " to-day, 
as to the Israelites in Babylon. 

The mass of these, however, did not believe in the 
coming deliverance, or in the visions of future national 
glory in Judea, and did not care for either ; and therefore 
the prophet proceeds with a refutation of their question- 
ings, and to strengthen those who are faithful, by a con- 
firmation of all that he has said in God's name. Jehovah 
is indeed resolved to carry out all He has promised. '' My 
ways," says He to the unbelieving, " and My thoughts, are 
not your ways and your thoughts." " I am not fickle and 
changeable, like man, but keep My word without fail, and 
therefore will assuredly protect My true people for ever." 
The unbelieving insinuated that He had abandoned them, 
and would never restore Israel, — for where was Cyrus, to 
whom they looked ? Away, against the kingdom of 
Croesus, in the farthest parts of Asia Minor ; not, appa- 
rently, thinking of Babylon ! But Jehovah's ways are as 
widely different from the ways of men as the heavens are 
higher than the earth, and they are as much grander ; for, 
while men are inconstant and unreliable, Jehovah is ever 
the same, and ever faithful. 

This unchangeableness will assuredly be shown in His 
carrying out the promise of delivering Israel ; for, " as the 
rain, when it falls on the earth, does not return to the 
heavens, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth 
and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 333 

the eater ; so the word of Jehovah, once spoken, does not 
return empty and resultless to Him, but accomplishes that 
which He pleases, and carries out fully that for which He 
has sent it." In the same way the deliverance will 
certainly be attained. The words of Balaam are for ever 
true : " God is not a man, that He should lie ; neither the 
son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and 
shall He not do it ? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
make it good ? " ^ 

The exiles will, then, assuredly be set free, and led back 
to their fatherland. They will go forth from Babylon 
with rejoicing and jubilee, not in fear and anxiety ; they 
will go forth also in peace, molested by no foe, for Jehovah 
Himself will be their leader. The very mountains and 
hills will, as it were, break forth into singing before them, 
on their march, and all the trees of the field will clap 
their hands for joy, when they see the glory of the 
approaching God, at the head of His people. JS'ot only so, 
but the track through the dry, barren, and rough desert, 
will become pleasant and easy. Instead of the thorny 
shrubs of the wilderness, shall come up the fir-tree, and 
instead of the brier, shall come up the myrtle ; and from 
that time they shall remain, as an abiding beauty, where 
there were formerly only wastes, and be an everlasting 
remembrance of the greatness and truth of Jehovah, in 
fulfilling His promise by bringing back the exiled nation 
to their home. 

1 Num. xxiii. 19. 



CYRUS. 

With the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Babylon, 
the time had come when the captives brought from Judea 
seventy years before, were to be allowed to return to their 
old home, if they saw fit. The date from which the period 
of exile is reckoned is put by some, as the third year of 
Jehoiakim, in accordance with the statement of the Book 
of Daniel,^ though others have varied it a little, on one 
ground or another. In all estimates, however, the dura- 
tion of the exile is within a year or so of the seventy 
years, which may fairly be regarded as a general, rather 
than a minutely definite, expression. 

The number deported from Judea to Babylon two 
generations before is not formally told, but the aggregate 
taken away at different times must have been consider- 
able. Nebuchadnezzar, in the beginning of his reign, 
when pursuing the Egyptians after the battle of Carche- 
mish, took back many prisoners from each land he wrested 
from the Egyptians, Judea among the rest. We read of 
eighteen thousand, the fiower of the nation, carried off 
with King Jehoiachin, so that " none remained, save the 
poorest sort of the people of the land ; " ^ and the rest of 
the citizens were swept off after their fellows, on the fall 
of Jerusalem, in B.C. 588.^ Long before this, however, 
Sennacherib, who " came up against all the fenced cities 

1 Dan. i. 1. ^ 2 Kings xxiv. 14. 3 2 Kings xxv. 11, 12. 

334 



CYRUS. 335 

of Judah, and took them," ^ is said to have deported two 
hundred thousand prisoners to the Euphrates and Tigris. 
In his famous annals he says : " As for Hezekiah of Judah, 
who had not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong 
cities . . . I captured; I brought out from the midst of them 
and counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and small, 
male and female." Yet, as a whole, the rural population 
were not disturbed, the necessity of retaining a popula- 
tion in the land, to prevent its relapsing into a wilder- 
ness incapable of paying tribute, making their removal 
inexpedient. 

During the earlier part of their captivity, the lot of 
the exiles, in many cases, had been bitter; but, as time 
passed, things improved, especially from the Jews being 
settled together in various places, which all seem to 
have been fertility itself, compared with the barren hills 
of Judea. N"ot a few rose to distinction, and many 
became rich. The old national organisation was every- 
where retained so completely, that they still had their 
elders and " princes," as of before. The prophets had striven 
hard to keep alive the old national sentiment and religion, 
but we see from Ezekiel that, at most, only a small 
number responded to their appeals. No doubt, Jiowever, 
a revival of enthusiasm had begun, in many, before the 
advent of the Medes and Persians ; but even the magnifi- 
cent incitements to leave Babylon, and rebuild the fallen 
city and temple of their fathers, failed to rouse more than 
a very small proportion of the exiles, from the indif- 
ference into which time, and the attractions of their new 
home, now, in effect, their native country, had sunk them. 

The policy of the great soldier-statesman who had 

1 2 Kings xviii. 13. 



336 CYRUS. 

gained the throne of Babylon had, meanwhile, opened the 
way for the restoration of the Hebrews to their own land, 
if they chose to return to it. Before the city perished, 
Jeremiah had foretold both the captivity and the return 
after seventy years, and Providence, through Cyrus, 
secured the fulfilment of the prediction. That monarch 
had determined to strenc^then the frontiers of his vast 
empire, and its general stability, by humouring, as far as 
was possible, the national desires of the many conquered 
races it embraced. With this view, he restored national 
life to not a few of them, and carefully sent back to each, 
the gods taken from them in war, or removed from 
various motives, to Babylon. To have the Jews return 
to Palestine fell in admirably with this idea ; for, since 
Phoenicia, on the north of it, was warmly loyal to Cyrus, 
and would bar the march of Egypt northwards, by 
the coast road, Judah, if once it were re-established, 
would check such an invasion at the very border of the 
Mle lands. Cyrus therefore issued a proclamation, which 
he sent abroad by heralds, to be published in all the 
provinces of his empire, announcing, as we learn from a 
translation of it in Chronicles and Ezra, that " Jehovah, 
God of heaven, had charged him to build for Him a house 
at Jerusalem.^ 

In Isaiah there is a distinct mention of Cyrus as the 
designed rebuilder of Jerusalem and its temple,^ and he 
may have heard of this ; but it seems doubtful if he knew 
much about the God of the Hebrews, for it is expressly 
said. of him, in the name of Jehovah, that he had not 
known Him.^ In any case, he was by no means a prose- 

1 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23 ; Ezra i. 2. - Isa. xliv. 23 ; xiv. 13. 

3 Isa. xlv. 4. 



CYRUS. 337 

lyte to Judaism; for inscriptions remain in which he 
calls himself a devoted worshipper of the great god 
Merodach, and unites his son Cambyses with him in 
loyalty to that deity,— the supreme head of the Baby- 
lonian heaven. It served his purpose, however, to 
patronise the gods of any of his subjects, that he might 
widen his popularity and further his aims. He would 
therefore flatter the Jews by showing all respect to their 
national divinity. 

The proclamation was a great event ; for it announced 
the freedom of every Jewish slave and called on all who 
chose to remain behind, to aid those who desired to leave, 
by the most liberal contributions of silver, gold, goods, 
and beasts, in addition to free gifts, towards the rebuild- 
ing of the Temple. The excitement was immense. Far 
north, on the Khabour, far off in the wild hills of Media, 
and everywhere along the innumerable canals of Baby- 
lonia, in the settlements of the Hebrews, the one theme 
was the liberty given by the Great King, to fulfil the 
predictions of the prophets, which, till now, seemed so 
hopeless of realisation. The question of Cyrus, " Who 
would go," became that of every one. But the first 
burst of enthusiasm erelong passed off. "Many," says 
Josephus, " remained in Babylonia, being unwilling to 
leave their possessions." 

A number, however, of the heads of septs in Judah and 
Benjamin, and also of priests and Levites, were moved, 
by deep religious feeling, to abandon all that could not be 
disposed of, and to start for the fatherland, that they 
might w^orship the God of their fathers, once more, on the 
mount He had chosen for His Temple, and raise the city 
of David from its ashes. Earnestness is always infectious. 



338 CYRUS. 

The sight of so mauy, and they the flower of the r ice, 
preparing to bid farewell to the rich landscapes of 
Babylonia, and cross the desert, to begin life again on 
the barren hills of Judah, because these had been the 
home of their fathers and the land of Jehovah, stirred 
their brethren profoundly. Vessels of silver and gold, 
goods of all kinds, and beasts for the long journey, were 
freely given to the intending pilgrim fathers, and with 
these a wealth of voluntary gifts towards the rebuilding 
of the Temple. 

ISTor was Cyrus himself indifferent. In the great 
temple of Bel there had lain, since the destruction of 
Jerusalem, the rich treasure of sacred vessels taken from 
the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and stored up in the 
sanctuary of the god to whom the victor had ascribed 
his triumph. Mithridates, the imperial treasurer, w^as 
commanded to bring these out, and to hand them over 
to Sheshbazzar, or Zerubbabel, the " prince " of Judah, 
who was to lead the host zealous for their religion and 
fatherland In all, no fewer than 5400 dishes of gold 
and silver, comprising huge shallow pans, for drink- 
offerings, or other purposes, some of silver, and others of 
gold, with censers and tankards of the same metals, were 
duly counted out and handed over. 

The great caravan at last was ready for starting ; but 
before it left, a careful list was taken of all its members, 
from which it was found that no more than 43,3(50 per- 
sons in all, including children above twelve years of age, 
were willing to face, the risks of the desert and the task 
of resettling their ruined land. There were, however, in 
addition, 7,337 male and female slaves, among whom 
were 200 trained singers and musicians, intended one 



CYKUS. 339 

may suppose for the Temple service, though it jars with 
modern notions to have slaves chanting the public praises 
of God. 

Of the twenty-four " courses " of priests, only four had 
zeal enough to contribute representatives, though each of 
these four sent a thousand of its members, so that nearly 
one in ten of the whole caravan was a priest. But the 
defection of the Levites was even more marked ; for only 
seventy-four of these cared to leave Babylon. That there 
were so few, shows how low the religious condition of the 
nation had fallen, and how largely it had been assimilated 
to the kindred race of Babylon, amidst which it had now 
lived for two generations. Henceforth the Levites, from 
their very fewness, were able to bear themselves more 
independently than of old, towards their more dignijEied 
brethren, the priests, and to strive for a nearer approach 
to equality with them. Of the sacerdotal orders below 
the full Levites, a band of 128 singers of the clan of 
Asaph, and 139 of that of the Temple watchmen, joined 
in the new exodus. 

There was, however, a still humbler body, who volun- 
tarily marched out with the host, — 393 " Nethinim," or 
temple slaves, and some of a class known as " Solomon's 
slaves ; " the former, as some think, bastards ; the most 
despised beings in the nation, though most unrighteously 
so; the latter, perhaps, descendants of the Canaanites 
enslaved by Joshua, and of prisoners of war taken at 
different times. Great care was used in settling the 
family descent of all the members of the migration ; for 
the inheritance of property, and the legal discharge of 
religious offices, depended on the purity of family 
registers. 



HOME, SWEET HOME. 

It was only after about four months of slow advance, if 
the pilgrim fathers from Babylon moved at the rate of 
modem caravans, that these heroes of a national resurrec- 
tion pitched their tents amidst the rubbish- mounds, which 
once had been the walls and streets of their holy city. 
These, now, had been overgrown, for two generations, 
with the tangle of thorns and stunted wood which covers 
the bills of Judea when left to nature, and were ten- 
anted only by foxes, and the wild creatures of the earth 
and air. 

There was little to encourage, and much to depress. 
The hereditary enemies of Israel, the Ef.cniites, after 
aiding the Chaldeans to destroy Jerusalem/ had appropri- 
ated a large part of the land, both north and south of the 
ruined capital, so that it required an edict from Cyrus to 
obtaiD, for the colonists, a few towns and a small territory 
round the now desolate centre. The bulk of the country 
had TO be left in the hands of the Edomites till they 
weic - ;; ^r 7 7 ■ 11 Hyrcanus, about a hundred and 
thirty yciii- :r:::r L -:::-:. Having been expelled from 
their own homes in Mount Seir, bv the Xabathaeans, the 
intruders held their new acquisitions with the tenacity of 
men to whom they were, now, their oidy country. 

But the Edomites were not the only foreign elements 

i Ps. cxsxviL 7. 
340 



HOME, SWEET HOME. 341 

found in possession of what had been Jewish territory. 
The peasantry of both Judea and the northern kingdom 
had been left behind by the Assyrian and Chaldean con- 
querors, to keep the land from relapsing to a state of 
nature ; but, as the Edomites had encroached on the 
vacant spaces of the south kingdom, large numbers of 
foreign heathen, from distant parts of Western Asia, had 
been sent by the kings of Mneveh, while it still lifted its 
hea'd above the nations, to fill up the loneliness of Central 
Palestine, caused by the deportation of so many Hebrews. 
The returned exiles were thus cooped up by a close circle 
of aliens. Their territory, if we may judge from the lists 
of towns in Ezra and Nehemiah, was very limited, — 
Bethlehem, five miles from Jerusalem, being the farthest 
on the south, while it did not reach a greater distance on 
the north. 

The first step towards the reorganisation of the state 
by the " Eeturn," was the appointment of a body of higher 
magistrates, and the formal recognition of the ancient 
order of " elders," as municipal authorities in town and 
country. Over these, as representative of the sovereign 
power, stood the Persian governor, whose headquarters, 
one may suppose, were at Samaria. The Jew henceforth, 
through all his continuance in Palestine, was to be the 
vassal of the heathen, except for a brief moment under 
the Maccabees. 

But political organisation was a very subordinate, 
though essential, step, in carrying out the plans of the 
colonists. The Eeturn had been pre-eminently a religious 
movement ; the result of the long and earnest work of 
prophets and their bands of godly adherents. The colo- 
nists were the children of this revival of religious feeling 



342 HOME, SWEET HOME. 

full of zeal for Jehovah, and, above all things, set on 
rebuilding His Temple on its old site; Jerusalem being 
only the humbly subordinate complement to the sacred 
structure. Their imaginations were, no doubt, excited by 
the wonderful visions proclaimed by prophets like Ezekiel, 
of the surpassing splendour of the new Temple and Holy 
City, which were described, in Eastern hyperbole, as 
covering a great part of the country.^ The reality, of 
course, was destined to contrast harshly with this dream ; 
but, meanwhile, it fired all to the utmost enthusiasm. 

Contributions towards the new Temple were olTered with 
splendid liberality ; the heads of clans giving, together, 
about £12,000 in gold, besides about £22,000 in silver, 
while the common people gave as much in gold, and about 
£20,000 in silver. In addition to all this, Zerubbabel, 
the leader of the exiles, and a grandson of the popular 
King Jelioiachin, apparently the richest of the pilgrim 
fathers, added a gift of about £9000, 50 basins, and 580 
robes for the priests, who, as a rule, were no doubt very 
poor. 

Six months passed, after the departure from Babylon, 
before the little community had settled, even in a rude 
way, in the spots assigned them by the authorities.^ 
The first confusion over, however, the w^hole body of 
colonists was summoned to Jerusalem, to raise an altar 
to Jehovah, on the place where it had formerly stood. In 
the enthusiasm of the day, the dimensions of that which 
had served for the old Temple were deemed too small. 
Had not the prophets foretold that all nations would 
stream to the rebuilt sanctuary, and bring the glory and 
honour of the heiithen with them to it ? The new altar 

1 Ezek. xl,-xlviii. - Ezra iii. 1, 



HOME, SWEET HOME. 343 

must be twice as large. But this did not involve much 
extra trouble ; for it necessarily would be built of 
unhewn stones, and any number of these lay on every 
side, the interior being filled simply with earth. ^ It 
would seem, indeed, as if it was begun and finished on 
the same day.^ 

They had left Babylon, apparently, in March, so that 
the inauguration of the new altar would fall in Sep- 
tember ; and now, from the first day of the seventh 
month, the smoke of the morning and evening sacrifice 
was once more seen rising from Mount Moriah, after an 
interval of two generations. Everything that could add 
to the augustness of the occasion was concentrated on the 
ceremony. Numbers of strangers from the various races 
and districts of the country, added, by their presence, to 
the effect ; for all the people, of whatever stock, were 
friendly, as yet, to the new enterprise, and desirous of 
making Jerusalem their religious centre. 

Till now, however, nothing had been done towards the 
foundation of the Temple ; but there was money iu the 
treasury, and the soil was yielding the means of adding 
to it. Preparations had not been neglected. Masons 
and carpenters were to be had from among the colonists 
themselves, and Tyrian sailors were hired, to bring down 
to Joppa, on rafts, the cedars given by Cyrus, from the 
forests of Lebanon. Gangs of labourers, meantime, we?e 
kept busy in removing the vast hills of wreck, left by 
the destruction of the old Temple, and in levelling and 
excavating the site of the new one. All, indeed, were 
zealous, alike, in this task. Priests, Levites, and citizens 
worked at it, as volunteers, with the greatest energy. 

J Exod, XX. 24, 25 ; 1 Esilras v. 50. - Ezra iii. 1^ 6. 



344 HOME, SWEET HOME. 

But it was not till the becrinnincr of the fourteenth 
month from their leaving the Euphrates, that this second 
stage in the progress towards the accomplishment of their 
lofty enterprise was reached. The stones required had 
by that time been squared, and a sufficient space for the 
beginning of the new structure had been cleared of ruins. 
The day having been fixed, the first stone was laid, 
amidst a great concourse of people ; the priests, in their 
new robes, forming the centre of the huge assembly 
round the sacred spot, while the air was filled, as the 
rite was being performed, doubtless by Zerubbabel and 
Joshua the High Priest, with the blasts of silver trumpets, 
the clash of cymbals, the music of varied instruments, 
and the triumphant notes of psalms specially composed 
for the occasion. 

Yet there were not wanting tears, half of grief, half of 
joy, from some withered old men, who could look back 
to the time, when, as boys, they had seen the old Temple, 
so long in ruins, but now at last, by the good hand of 
their God upon them, about to rise from its grave. To 
have begun the new colony by caring for the honour of 
its God, was a good omen for the future ; but there 
were troublous days in store before His house should be 
finished. Still, the devotion of noble souls was a pledge 
of final triumph. 



THORNS ON THE ROSE, 

The fair beginning of the great work of the colonists, 
on the site of what had been Jerusalem, was destined 
to be very soon disturbed. Before the Exile, foreign 
trade, and the relations of the kings to the neighbouring 
lands, had led to a liberality of feeling towards aliens, 
more or less dangerous to the rigid observance of the 
Mosaic institutions. During the long residence of 
Judah in Babylon, however, a great change had taken 
place in the religious feelings of the little nation. Josiah, 
before the break-up of the state, had introduced a new 
era. The discovery of the Law during his reign had 
given an impulse to its minute observance, hitherto 
unknown, and this had been deepened, during the Exile, 
by the devotion of the better members of the priesthood 
and laity, to the written prescriptions of their religion, 
in their enforced freedom from the observance of its 
public rites. 

Those who had returned to Palestine, or at least 
many of them., including the leaders, were hence intense 
legalists, bent on founding a state in which the exclusive 
claims of the Jew to be the elect of the nations, should 
be enforced by the most determined isolation from all 
other races. Yet, as we shall see, a large number of 
the general community had not acted on this principle 
of standing aloof from all the world in every relation ; 

345 



346 THORXS ox THE ROSE. 

for numbers of them, long after the Eeturn, had married 
wives who were not Jewesses, but of Canaanitish stock, 
as had occurred within the nation, at different times, 
from the days of Moses down. This, as expressly for- 
bidden in the Law of Moses,^ was hereafter to be stopped, 
and, in fact, was summarily abolished by Ezra in the 
harshest manner. 

But, even from their first appearance after arri^dng 
from Babylon, they showed a spirit of unfriendliness 
towards their neighbours, which had in it the germs 
of the wide hatred of all other races, which was destined 
to make the Jew detested, in his turn, from those days 
till now. The first symptom of this feeling showed itself, 
even before a stone had been laid in the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem. The people of central Palestine, known in 
those ages as " the Samaritans," were, like the Jews 
themselves, of mixed blood , for, as the generations after 
Joshua had freely intermarried with the races whose 
territory they had seized,- and had been more or less 
imitated in this by all successive generations, it must 
have been well-nigh impossible to find a single person 
of absolutely pure Jewish blood, among those who had 
returned. But their leaders resolutely ignored this, 
and assumed that the vouno; colonv was of the most un- 
questionable Hebrew lineage, and, as such, could not en- 
tertain any overtures of friendly intimacy, however well 
meant, from any of what they regarded as the mixed com- 
munities, even where, as in the case of the Samaritans, 
they claimed to be of Jewish blood. When, therefore, a 
deputation arrived from the green hills of Ephraim, offer- 
ing to co-operate with the colony, in rebuilding the Temple 

1 Esod. xxxiv. 16 ; Deut. vii. 3. - Judg-. iii. 6. 



THOKNS ON THE KOSE. 347 

and the Holy City, Zerubbabel, the head dignitary, with 
Joshua the priest, and the elders, who formed the senate 
and judges, declined the proposal. Yet, if some of 
the people of the old home of Ephraim were of mingled 
blood, it is certain that many descendants of the 
Israelitish peasantry must have been left in the land 
by the Assyrians, of as pure blood as any of those who 
shrank from them. Indeed, the physical characteristics 
of the Samaritans of to-day, are, as a whole, much more 
Jewish than those of many who are recognised by their 
brethren as Jews. 

The truth is, the men who influenced the colonists were 
leaders of the new school of Judaism, dating from the time 
of Josiah, but immensely developed in Babylon, who, in 
conformity with the teaching of the Law of Moses, would 
have no dealings whatever, fartlier than were necessary, 
with any but Jews. The colonists themselves w^ere 
divided on this point, some resenthig such a policy as ex- 
clusiveness, others supporting it. The harmony that had 
hitherto prevailed was changed into the rivalry and mutual 
hatred of opposing parties, which crystallised from this 
time, among the Jews, into the definite forms henceforth 
marking them, as the bitterly opposed expressions of 
religious life, which we see them to be in the days of our 
Lord. 

The Samaritans, who held themselves grossly insulted, 
now became dangerous enemies. Zerubbabel, the chief of 
the Eeturn, was a scion of the royal family of Judah, and 
nothing was more easy than to represent this as dangerous, 
liereafter, to the Persian supremacy. Would he not plot 
against it, to gain the crown of his fatheru for himself? 
"J'lie pasha at Samaria listened to insinuations of this 



348 THORNS ON THE EOSE. 

possible treachery. Kepresentations of the risk of com- 
plications from this source were forwarded by him to 
Susa ; and the Samaritans strove to add to their weight 
by sending hired counsellors to heighten the alarm at 
the imperial court. The evil repute of the Jew, as utterly 
unmanageable by Babylon before the Exile, would be 
carefully brought to the remembrance of the Persian 
authorities. The end was, that the building of the Temple 
was forthwith prohibited. 

Cyrus lived for seven more years, and would allow no- 
thing to be done, though he had originally been so warm 
a friend. Cambyses, his son, was too busy with his wars 
to trouble about the Jews, and hence little could be dorfe 
even under him. ISTor was it till the second year of 
Darius — the sixteenth after the Eeturn — that the sound of 
workmen's tools was again heard on Mount Moriah. Gloom 
settled over the little colony. The golden dreams in which 
it had indulged had passed away, like the gorgeous colours 
of morning clouds. 

But better days were coming. Two prophets, Zechariah 
and Haggai, appeared ; and their enthusiasm roused that 
of their brethren, with the best results. In fifteen years, 
nothing of all the grand future foretold by the prophets in 
Babylon had been fulfilled ; for the raising of an altar of 
rough stones and earth, and the laying of the foundation- 
stone of the Temple, were not worth naming as the achieve- 
ments of so long a period. Indifference had settled on the 
community. Shut out from religious aspirations such as 
they had indulged at first, they had latterly devoted 
themselves to their material interests. Fine houses had 
risen among the ruins of Jerusalem, with costly panelling 
and all details of luxury ; but with regard to the Temple, 



THOKNS ON THE IfOSE. 349 

it was alleged, as an excuse for neglect, that the time to 
begin the rebuilding again had not come, — a fresh firman 
was needed, and that they had not received. But Haggai 
maintained that the original firman of Cyrus, never hav- 
ing been revoked, was still in force : and his earnestness 
carried the community with him. Erelong, the sacred 
hill was again thronged with workmen, to cheer whom 
the prophet took care to supply grounds of bright hope 
and confidence. Of one of his harangues to them we have 
a fragment preserved, as follows : 

" Who among you is left who has seen this house in its 
former glory ? And how see you it now ? Does it not 
appear as nothing, in your eyes, in comparison ? Yet, Be 
of good heart, Zerubbabel, says Jehovah ; be of good heart, 

Joshua, the son of Josedech, and be of good heart, all 
ye people of the land, says Jehovah, and work ! For I 
am with you, says Jehovah of hosts. The covenant that 

1 made with you when ye came out of Egypt stands firm, 
and My Spirit remains in your midst ; fear ye not ! For 
thus says Jehovah of hosts : It will be only a little while 
till I shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and 
the dry land, and till I shake all nations, and the wealth 
of all will come hither, and I will fill this house with 
splendour, says Jehovah of hosts. The silver is Mine, and 
the gold is Mine, says Jehovah of hosts. The glory of 
this house will be greater than that of the former, says 
Jehovah of hosts, and in this place will I give peace, says 
Jehovah of hosts." 

These lofty anticipations were doomed, like the visions 
of the earlier prophets, to remain in great part unrealised ; 
for the glory of the second Temple was much beneath that 
of Solomon, nor can it be claimed for it, that the presence 



350 THORNS ON THE ROSE. 

of our Lord in it gave it special honour, for Christ came 
to the third Temple, not to the second. But the earnest- 
ness of the high-souled speaker did noble service ; for 
every one sprang to the work with a zeal in vivid contrast 
to the apath} di the past. 



THE PROPHET HAGGAL 

The appearance of the aged prophet Haggai, or, rather, 
his coming forward, in the character of an enthusiast 
for the resumption of work in the rebuilding of the 
Temple, had roused the now long torpid interest of the 
small Jewish colony at Jerusalem, to a fresh zeal for 
this great aim of the return from Babylon. It was in 
the year 521 B.C. that he, perhaps for the first time, 
had claimed to speak authoritatively for God ; and as 
his hearers had been in Judah since 537, it was clearly 
necessary to agitate vigorously if anything were to be 
done. The voice of Haggai had startled the settlers 
from their apathy in the September or October of 521. 
Eour weeks later he had made a second appeal,^ which 
kindled such excitement that work on the Temple hill 
forthwith was renewed, after an interval of fifteen years. 
Three months later, he was heard once more stimulating 
all to unflagging earnestness in the great task, by at 
once reminding them of their sinful neglect in the past, 
and assuring them of the favour of Jehovah, in the 
future ; to be shown, among other ways, by His granting 
them abundant crops, if they acted piously in the matter 
of His house.^ A special message, moreover, to Zerubbabel, 
the "prince" of the colony, was added, to encourage 
him, also, to increased devotion in the sacred work. 

A month before this, however, the impression made 

1 Hag. ii. 1-9. 2 Hag. ii. 11-19. 

351 



352 THE PROPHET HAGGAI. 

by the old man's appeals had been deepened by the 
appearance of a new prophet, a yonng man, Zechariah, 
the son or grandson of one Iddo, the head of a priestly 
house of the Jewish settlement ; so that Zechariah was 
himself a priest, for the Hebrew priesthood was hereditary. 
He was also a hereditary prophet, for his father or 
grandfather had belonged to the order. His style marks 
the influence of that of Ezekiel, which continued to 
colour the utterances of all succeeding generations of 
Hebrew literature, till after the fall of the nation. As 
they were no longer independent, it was not safe to 
speak out in direct statement, as Isaiah and the elder 
prophets had done. Amidst alien races, and amenable 
to foreign masters, refuge was sought from possible 
danger, through too great explicitness, in the obscurity 
of mystical visions, after the example of the prophet 
of the banks of the Chebar. The Book of Daniel, 
and a multitude of apocalyptic writings of later date, 
carried down the mode thus introduced, till Jerusalem 
had fallen before the assault of Titus. 

It would seem as if the words of Haggai had been 
soon forgotten ; for Zechariah warns the people to take 
a lesson from the fate of their fathers, whose forsaking 
God had been their ruin.^ Three months later he was 
granted a series of "visions," seven of which, he told 
the people, had been vouchsafed him in one night. They 
all have the common aim of impressing on the colony, 
that Jehovah would assuredly bless it, as Haggai had 
said, if its members were faithful to Him ; their fidelity 
showing itself, of course, in the then present, by their 
zealously finishing His house.^ 

1 Zech. i. 2-6. - Zech. i. 8 to vi. S. 



THE PROPHET HAGGAI. ' 353 

In the first vision the prophet sees horses of different 
colours, sent out ,by Jehovah, from among a clump of 
myrtles, to all parts of the earth, to bring back a report 
respecting them-. This they presently did, announcing 
that the world was everywhere peaceful. No signs 
appeared of that "shaking of the nations" predicted by 
Haggai, as leading on to the overthrow of the enemies 
of Israel, and the exaltation of Jerusalem to supreme 
glory. An angel, hearing this, cries to God to have 
pity on His city, and the cities of Judah now lying in 
ruins, and desolate for so many years. His supplications 
are forthwith heard. Zechariah is to tell the people 
at once, that Jehovah is full of loving zeal for Jerusalem, 
and of vehement indignation at the heathen, who had 
added to its troubles when He had been angry, though 
only a little so, with it. He would see that His house 
was rebuilt in it, and that its streets should rise again 
from their ruin ; that prosperity would again flow through 
them, and that the community would be comforted after 
all their sufferings, for He, Jehovah, had returned to 
Zion. 

Zechariah then sees four horns rise before him, — the 
emblems of the nations that had " scattered Judah, Israel, 
and Jerusalem." But they appear, only to be cast down 
by four smiths, to the great dismay of the horns. A 
third scene now rises, in which the prophet sees a man 
setting out with a measuring-line, as if to fix the circuit 
limits of Jerusalem. He is not allowed, however, to 
do so, because the new city is to be without walls, like 
the open country, on account of the vast number of 
its inhabitants ; no walls being wide enough, in their 
rounding sweep, to contain the mighty population of 



354 THE PROPHET HAGGAI. 

which it would boast. Nor would they need ramparts 
or bulwarks; for Jehovah Himself would be at once 
its glory and its defence. 

How it is that, with such prospects, so many of the 
race should stay behind in Babylon, the prophet cannot 
conceive. Will they not come, even yet, to cast in their 
lot with the favoured city of God ? But in every 
community there are people of many types, and in that 
among the ruins of Jerusalem some were found, so 
beautiful in their humility, as to be afraid the sins of 
the colonists were too great to be pardoned, and recognising 
that they had caused all the disappointments of the 
past years. 

A fourth vision was sent to Zechariah, to cheer these 
worthy souls, and to remove a cause of dejection which 
would inevitably tell on their enthusiasm. Joshua the 
High Priest, as the representative of the whole people, 
appeared to the mental eyes of the prophet, standing 
before the angel of Jehovah, in robes sorely befouled, 
while the Adversary, or — to use the Hebrew word, since 
made a proper name — Satan, stood at the right hand 
of the angel, to accuse Joshua. The conception of the 
evil spirit was thus, in Zechariah's day, still the same 
as it had been in tha^t of Job, or, at least, of the composer 
of the book bearing that name ; for there as here, 
Satan appears in the presence of God as the accuser. 
But the indictment not only fails, — Satan is rebuked 
for bringing it forward by Jehovah Himself, who declares 
that " He has chosen " Jerusalem.. " Is not this man," 
(or community), says the Eternal, " a brand plucked 
from the fire " (of exile) ? 

Such words, from God Himself, were immediately 



THE PEOPHET HAGGAI. 355 

followed by the angel commanding those who stood, as 
His ministers, before Him — beings lower than He, but 
still angelic — to remove the soiled robes from Joshua, 
and the priestly turban, which, like the robes, was defiled, 
and to put on him pure robes and a spotless turban, 
adding the cheering words, " Behold, I have caused thine 
iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with 
rich apparel." When the new turban was put on, further 
gracious words were vouchsafed. " I give thee assurance," 
said the angel, " that Jehovah speaks thus, through me : 
* If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep 
My charge, then thou shalt judge in My house, as well 
as be over its grounds and buildings, and I shall give 
thee access to My face, through the lines of angels 
standing before it. 

" ' Nor is even this all. Joshua and his fellow- 
dignitaries of the priesthood, who sit before him, men 
who, in their free pardon by Me, are a sign of My designed 
grace to the people as a whole, may well give ear; for 
God is about to bring forth His servant, the Branch — 
of the root of David — the promised Messiah Prince of 
Judah.' " Then follow mysterious words, as a pledge 
of the watchful providence that will see all that has 
been spoken fulfilled. A stone, seen in the vision, has 
seven eyes on it. It is an emblem of the kingdom of 
Judah, now so weak; the eyes on it, a symbol of the 
sleepless care for His people by Jehovah, who will, more- 
over, " remove the iniquity of that land (Judah) in one 
day," — words which have been interpreted in the most 
opposite ways. In that time peace will reign, every 
one sitting quietly under his own vine and fig-tree. 



FURTHER VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH. 

The series of visions vouchsafed to Zechariah in the sleep 
of one night, shows how sorely the leaders of the colony 
of returned exiles must have been troubled in reference 
to the great work, for which, especially, its members had 
left Babylon. After sixteen years no progress worth 
naming had been made ; and the long suspension of opera- 
tions, through the successful opposition of the Samaritans, 
had so dulled the edge of popular enthusiasm, that indif- 
ference threatened to prevent any renewal of activity. 
Haggai was trying hard to rekindle the old feeling, but, 
though he had roused a passing outburst of energy, it had 
died away almost immediately. 

Zechariah, therefore, had come forward to strengthen 
the hands of the aged seer, by independent agitation on 
the supreme question. He had already been favoured with 
four visions, which he would doubtless publish forthwith, 
and now a fifth was sent to him. He had been asleep, 
when the angel who had spoken to him previously re- 
turned, and waked him to consciousness. On his opening 
his eyes, he found the scenery of a fifth vision before 
him, and he was asked by his heavenly visitor what he 
saw. "' I have seen," replied the prophet ; " and behold 
there is a lamp-stand all of gold, and it has a bowl 
above it, for holding oil, and there are seven lamps on 
it, and seven pipes from the bowl to feed them with oil; 

356 



FURTHER VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH. 367 

and two olive-trees stand by it, one on each side of the 
bowl." 

Perplexed as to what this symbolised, Zechariah ven- 
tured to ask the angel its meaning, but received only a 
vague answer, which must have left him, as it leaves us, 
with many possibilities of speculation. In the previous 
vision, Joshua the High Priest is the prominent figure ; in 
this, Zerubbabel takes his place. Of Joshua it had been 
said that, if he were true to Jehovah, and carried out his 
office as God desired, he would remain in the Temple per- 
manently, as judge and overseer, and would no more be 
accused, but would walk freely to and fro between the 
ministering spirits who stand before God, and in whose 
presence, the Adversary, in the past, had brought charges 
against him. The Messiah, moreover, — the Branch from 
the root of David, — would soon come. And the associate 
officials of Joshua, who heard this promise, as them- 
selves men of insight and prophecy, were pledges of its 
fulfilment. 

A wondrous stone, besides, as I have said, was set by 
God before Joshua, as a fni-ther sign, seven eyes being 
divinely engraved on it, — mystical emblems, as we learn 
from Eevelation, of " the seven highest spirits which are 
before God's throne." ^ The stone, thus, taught, that the 
work of raising the new Temple was under the watchful 
guardianship of the supreme Divine love and care. It 
was to stand out, moreover, with its wondrous emblazon- 
ment of the seven eyes, as the " head " or topmost " stone " 
of the Temple, — its completion and ornament, shining, re- 
splendently, far and wide, so that all sin would flee away 
from before the mysterious glance of these sacred eyes. 

1 Rev. i. 4. 



358 FURTHER VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH. 

Joshua bad been absolved from all that was charcfed 
against hnn, and, now, the whole community would be 
cleared from all guilt, in reference to their past neglect 
of the restoration of God's house. It would, indeed, be 
the Messianic time, in the Jewish sense, bringing peace 
and security under the vine and fig-tree. 

Then follows the vision of seven lamps, fed with oil 
from the bowl over them. The seven lamps are the 
counterpart of the seven eyes on the stone of the former 
vision, symbolising, like them, the same seven highest 
spirits of God, and also the all-present eyes of Jehovah 
Himself, shining through all the world. The lamps them- 
selves, and their beams, proclaim that, from this divinely 
vouchsafed centre, stream forth all the energies of 
heavenly love and tender care, ever present, and ever 
ready to help. Thus favoured, Zerubbabel will triumph- 
antly finish the Temple, in spite of all opposition, borne 
on, not by outward human power or skill, but by the 
Spirit of God, and protected by Him. " Who art thou," 
asks the angel, " great mountain " (of difficulties) ? 
" Before Zerubbabel thou shalt be changed into a plain ; 
and Jehovah, through Zerubbabel, after all the trying dis- 
appointments of past years, shall bring forth the finishiug 
stone of the Temple, amidst the shouting of Israel, 
invoking on it, again and again, the favour of Heaven. 

Then, in plain language, Zechariah announces what 
Jehovah has told him to say : " The hands of Zerubbabel 
have already laid the foundation of the Temple ; his hands 
shall also finish it ; and thou shalt know that the Lord 
of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who will despise 
the present day of small things ? The seven eyes of God 
see, with joy, the plummet in the hands . of Zerubbabel, 



FURTHER VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH. 359 

as he tries the perfectness of the rising fabric ; for these 
eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth." 

Emboldened by this condescending explanation, the 
prophet now ventures to ask further : " What is the 
meaning of the two olive-trees, one on each side of the 
lamp, and also what is meant by the two olive branches 
above the rest, at the side of the two golden tubes, which 
empty the golden oil into the lamps below ? " " These," said 
the angel, " are the two heads of the state and of religion, 
who, before God, are anointed ones, commissioned for 
high tasks, and stand nearest and closest to Him and His 
spirits. They are His highest servants in His kingdom on 
earth, and, as such, they enjoy His fullest illumination 
and His protecting guardianship." There was therefore 
no need to hesitate respecting the recommencement of 
the Temple works, or of any irresolution in their vigorous 
prosecution to final completeness. 

Such a mode of encouraging political and religious 
leaders, to the building of a temple, seems strange to our 
ideas, but it is, even now, exactly in keeping with the 
ways of Orientals. A dervish, who was anxious to further 
some religious object, would be as much disposed as 
Zechariah to deal in metaphors ; and it was the same in 
the days of our Lord, for His teaching was chiefly in 
parables. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

The grand assurance to Zerubbabel that Jehovah Himself 
would secure the triumphant completion of the Temple, 
and that the mountain of difficulties before the popular 
leader, would be levelled to a plain by the Divine Spirit, 
was fitted to kindle the most earnest enthusiasm in the 
colony at Jerusalem. But other visions were also made 
known by the prophet. A huge roll, or book — as books 
were then written — thirty feet long and fifteen feet broad, 
was seen Hying through the heavens, the writing with 
which it was filled, being declared to be the awful curse 
of God on the sinners of the land. A great vessel, more- 
over, was seen, the cover of which, on being lifted, showed 
a woman who personified wickedness, sitting inside, as in 
a oage. This hideous burden was presently lifted from 
the ground by two winged female forms, and carried off 
to Babylonia, — the symbol, in those days, of all moral 
uncleanness, — Judah being thus freed from its presence. 

By these two pictorial lessons the colony was taught 
that wickedness would not be tolerated in the community 
to be honoured by the possession of the new Temple. The 
state, when sanctified by the presence of Jehovah, in the 
house to be built for His name, was to be a land of right- 
eousness ; its " iniquity being removed " from the day 
when the sanctuary was tenanted by the indwelling God.^ 

1 Zech. iii. 9. 
3ti0 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 361 

An incident which took jjl^ce soon after, must have 
cheered the hearts of the community, as showing, that, 
amidst all their local trials, they were not forgotten by 
their brethren on the Euphrates. A deputation from 
these arrived, bringing a gift of both gold and silver, as a 
mark of the sympathy of their fellows in the Eastern 
lands. Crowns were made of the costly present, to be set 
upon the head of Joshua the High Priest, and then laid 
up in the Temple, as a memorial of the love that had sent 
them. 

In the midst of this touching scene, the voice of Zecha- 
riah was once more heard, encouraging the leaders. " Be- 
hold the man," said he, " whose name is the Branch," — ' 
Zerubbabel was a branch of the house of David, — " from 
him there shall be sprouting, and he shall build the Temple 
of Jehovah : even he shall build the Temple of Jehovah ; 
and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon 
his throne," as civil head of the state, " and there shall be 
a priest on his throne : and the counsel of peace shall be 
between them both." The new state was thus to have 
two heads, as at that moment, — a virtual king, and also a 
High Priest over the Church ; a constitution which was 
then the ideal among the Jews, and actually obtained, 
more or less, till the days of Herod. 

Meanwhile, Darius had issued a new decree, confirming 
that of Cyrus, that the rebuilding of the Temple should 
not be opposed. Local jealousy and plotting were thus 
paralysed ; and the walls of the sanctuary continued 
steadily to rise, under the animating exhortations of the 
prophets, — including, perhaps, others, besides Haggai and 
Zechariah. Four years, however, were spent in com- 
pleting the elaborate structure ; but at last, in March of 



362 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

B.C. 516, the sixth year of Darius, and twenty years after 
the Eeturn, it was ready for consecration. 

We know very little of the size or details of the sacred 
house which had been raised with so much difficulty, in 
spite of so many delays, and in the face of so much op- 
position of foes and apathy of friends. With its various 
"courts," it seems to have enclosed about the same space 
as the earlier Temple ; but if the measurements prescribed 
in the decree of Cyrus were adopted, the house itself must 
have been larger than that famous building. The entire 
grounds were guarded by a wall of squared stones, three 
rows high, coped with a row of duly smoothed wooden 
beams. The Holy of Holies, which w^as absolutely empty, 
was entered through a magnificent curtain or " veil," and 
was built over a point of the original hill- top. This rose, 
however, only three finger-breadths above the floor, but it 
served as a rest on which the High Priest laid the pan of 
incense, on the only occasion on which the awful chamber 
could be entered, which was the great day of atonement, 
at the opening of each year. 

It may be, that the stony spot thus honoured was the 
one over which now rises that exquisite creation of archi- 
tectural genius, the Dome of the Eock, formerly known 
as the Mosque of Omar. But if so, a wide circle besides 
the portion seen in the Holy of Holies is exposed ; for the 
rough, yellow limestone visible, measures yards across. A 
railing guards it from sacrilegious approach; for its sanctity 
is beyond words to both Jew and Mahommedan, though 
the poor Jew is not allowed to have even a sight of it. 

The ark, so supremely honoured before the Captivity, 
was never seen after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city 
and burned the Temple. Its disappearance gave rise to 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 363 

many legends, invented to soothe the pride of the nation, 
by ascribing its loss to heavenly foresight, rather than to 
the violence of man. It was said, for example, that Jere- 
miah had hidden it in a cave of Mount Nebo, and would 
restore it at the coming of the Messiah ; and, also, that it 
had been carried by angels to heaven, and lay safely there 
till the Jewish Messianic kingdom should be set up. The 
golden cherubim, over the mercy-seat or cover of the ark, 
the tables of stone on which were graven the Ten Com- 
mandments, the urn of manna, and the rod of Aaron, in 
the same way, were gone ; so that, when Pompey daringly 
forced his way into the inmost sanctuary of the Temple, 
he came out reporting that the Jews worshipped nothing, 
— a fancy which ultimately was exchanged for the cruel 
fable, born of Egyptian ill-will, that they worshipped the 
head of an ass, preserved in their holiest shrine. The 
golden shields that once hung in the outer chambers had 
been carried off to Egypt by Shishak, in the reign of 
Eehoboam; and the Urim and Thummim, which the 
High Priest had worn over his official robes, as an oracle, 
disappeared with the Exile, to be seen no more. 

In the Holy Place, as in that of the first Temple, a single 
lamp threw a feeble light on the table of shewbread, the 
altar of incense, plated with gold, with golden censers, and 
the rich treasure of ancient sacred vessels of gold and 
silver, carried to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, but given 
back by Cyrus. Two courts extended before the sacred 
building, and in the one nearer the Temple, rose a great 
square altar of rough stones, filled in with earth, thirty 
feet each way and fifteen feet high, with an approach by 
an inclined plane. Not far from it stood a huge round 
bath, for the ablutions of the priests, which their having so 



364 LIGHT IN DAEKNESS. 

much to do with blood made imperative. Store-chambers, 
and cells for the material needed in a sacrificial system, 
lined the outer enclosing walls, a number of chambers 
being also provided for the priests on duty at any given 
time. A bridge on the west spanned the valley between 
Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. 

In the Temple of Solomon, clumps of trees, " planted in 
the courts of the Lord," ^ had offered a shade grateful to 
the worshipping multitudes. But none were allowed in 
the grounds of Zerubbabel's sanctuary, — probably from the 
horror of anything like a heathen Temple-grove fl.ourish- 
ing near the dwelling-place of Jehovah, to whom idols 
were an abomination. 

A curious sign of the dependence of Israel, in those 
days, on a foreign power, was shown, in the erection of a 
military post for the Persian governor and his guards, on 
the north-west corner of the sacred grounds. Over one of 
the outer gates, moreover, a representation of the Persian 
capital, Susa, was sculptured, while, for the first time, the 
fringe of the outer court was made free to proselytes from 
the heathen. 

'No details are given of the consecration of the building 
raised with. so much difficulty; but we may be sure it was 
carried out with all available splendour. The nation was 
at last loyal to Jehovah. Henceforth, no approach to its 
old liking for idolatry w^as conceivable. Zeal for the wor- 
ship of the one God of the race, had taken possession of 
all hearts, though it had needed the bitter experiences of 
nearly a thousand years to wean them from the love of 
strange gods, which had marked them in every age, from 
the Exodus to the Captivity. A sin- offering for all Israel, 

1 Ps. xcii. 13. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 365 

of one hundred oxen, two hundred rams, and four hundred 
lambs, with twelve goats to represent the twelve tribes, 
smoked on the great altar, day by day, till they had been 
consumed, so far as sacrifices were actually burned, — for 
a large part of each victim was reserved for the priests 
and the offerers. A grand celebration of the Passover, 
when the season for it arrived, made a fit completion of 
the services ; the details given of the whole consecration, 
revealing a marked difference in the legal exactness of 
the new era, which the return from Babylon had inau- 
gurated. 



EZRA AND N EH EM I AH, 

The story of the Jerusalem colony, after the consecration 
of the new Temple, is left obscure till the arrival of Ezra 
in the Holy City, in the year B.C. 459 or 458 ; that is, at 
least fifty-seven years later. We can glean some feeble 
indications, however, of its history in the interval, from 
incidental notices. 

Zerubbabel left a number of descendants/ some appa- 
rently of full royal birth, and others of inferior standing. 
Of none of his posterity, however, is anything told, in 
connection with political life, nor have we any further 
information respecting the colony, till the days of Ezra, 
except that it sank into such misery that the news of its 
distress was carried even to Babylon. But if Zerubbabel 
vanished from history, he lingered fondly in the memory 
of his people. The wisdom of his son Joacim is noted in 
Esdras,^ and Zerubbabel is made the subject of a legend 
whicli ascribes the consent of Darius to the rebuilding of 
the Temple, to his wit and patriotism.^ Indeed, so great 
was his permanent dignity in the memory of Judah, that 
both the genealogies of Christ — that through the old kings, 
and that through the successive families — are carried up, 
through him, to David. 

A great impulse to the priestly and theological tendency 

1 1 Chron. iii. 19, 20. 2 1 Esdras v. 5, 6. 

3 1 Esdras iv. 13-63, 

2.m 



EZKA AND NEHEMIAH. 367 

of the state was given, by the arrival in Jerusalem of the 
famous " scribe " Ezra, who was a priest as well as a scribe. 
Hmts that the Law was not so strictly observed, in the 
colony at Jerusalem, as in Babylonia, had reached the 
Euphrates, and had led Ezra to ask permission from the 
Persian king^ to visit Judah. As he stood in high favour 
with Artaxerxes, this was not only granted, but, by a 
royal commission, Ezra was clothed with power, to enforce 
compliance with the law of his God, in all that concerned 
the Jewish religion. Kequisitions could be made by him, 
under royal authority, for all the supplies he might need 
at Jerusalem ; but his views were reflected in the fact, 
that all priests, Levites, and other officials of the Temple, 
were to be specially exempted from taxation. 

Carrying a large amount of wealth with him, he reached 
the Holy City fifty-seven years after the dedication of 
the Temple. Zerubbabel, we may suppose, had long been 
dead. The circumstances of the colony must have been 
far from bright, to judge from their state fourteen years 
later, on the arrival of [N'ehemiah, but we do not find that 
Ezra did anything to ameliorate them. He was too much 
engrossed with the letter of the Law, as he understood it. 
The book that bears his name, records the success of his 
zeal against marriages with any but Jewesses, though such 
marriages had been recognised, in all ages, in the nation, 
as we see in the cases of Moses, Euth, David, and many 
others. Large numbers of wives, of pagan stock, but now 
professing Judaism, were forced by him from their hus- 
bands, but only after a hard struggle on their behalf. 

Of the next fourteen years of the history of the city, 
we know nothing. In B.C. 445, however, a new personage, 
of great influence on the future of Israel, arrived from 



368 EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. 

Peisia. This was JSTehemiah, the cupbearer of the Great 
King. As such, he had constant access to the royal 
presence, a position which implies the fullest trust in him, 
since only one on whose loyalty no breath of suspicion 
rested, could be admitted to a post so confidential. One 
of his brothers, we are told, returned from Jerusalem 
with a dismal account of the state of things in that city, 
though it was over ninety years since Zerubbabel had led 
the Return, with such high hopes, from Babylonia. The 
story pierced the tender heart of Nehemiah. Jerusalem, 
the city of his fathers, still lay waste, — the city of the 
graves of the flower of his people ! The thought pressed 
heavily on him for four months — from December to April 
— before he could muster courage to do anything, to gain 
permission from the king, to try to restore it. 

At last, Artaxerxes noticed his sadness, and the secret 
had to come out, though it made the cupbearer " very sore 
afraid" to be detected even in innocent dejection. But 
his transparent sincerity, when he confessed that he was 
mourning for the sad condition of the city of the graves 
of his fathers, disarmed suspicion. " If it please the king," 
said ISTehemiah, " and if thy slave have found favour in 
thy sight, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' 
sepulchres, that I may rebuild it." The petition was 
heard, and indefinite leave of absence was granted ; and 
the cupbearer, erelong, was in the Holy City, as Persian 
pasha. He had prayed long and earnestly, and now the 
answer had come. 

One of his supplications, during the months of suspense, 
has been preserved, and it merits close study for its spirit 
as well as its language. After weeping, and mourning, 
and fasting, for days, he prayed: "I beseech Thee, 



EZRA AND NEHEMIAIT. 369 

Jehovah, God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that 
keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him, and 
observe His commandments : let Thine ear now be atten- 
tive and Thine eyes open, that Thou may est hear the prayer 
of Thy servant, which I pray before Thee now, day and 
night, for the children of Israel Thy servants, and confess 
the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned 
against Thee : both I and my father's house have sinned. 
We have dealt very corruptly against Thee, and have not 
kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judg- 
ments, which Thou commandedst Thy servant Moses, saying, 
' If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the 
nations : but, if ye turn unto Me, and keep My command- 
ments, and do them ; though there were of you cast out 
unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather 
them from thence, and will bring them unto the place 
that I have chosen to set My name there.' Now these 
are Thy servants and Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed 
by Thy great power, and by Thy strong hand. Lord, I 
beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer 
of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who 
desire to fear Thy name : and prosper, I pray thee, Thy 
servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of 
this man." 



N EH EM I AH. 

Ninety years had passed since the pilgrim fathers, under 
Zerubbabel, had left the fertile plains of Babylon, for 
the grey barrenness of the hills of Judea; their souls 
aglow with visions of the glory awaiting them, as painted 
in the magnificent strains of the prophets, concerning 
the return from the Exile. The waste places of Jerusalem 
had been summoned, by one of these, to break forth 
into joy, and shout together, for Jehovah had comforted 
His people, He had redeemed Jerusalem. The Holy City 
was to rise from its ashes in wondrous splendour ; its 
stones were to be cemented with costly black antimony, 
and its foundations with sapphires ; its battlements were 
to be of rubies, its huge castle-like gates of carbuncles; 
and its encircling walls of lovely precious stones.^ 

Instead of this, the city still lay in ruins, after nearly 
a hundred years ; the colony had been, and still was, 
poor and struggling; so poor, and so struggling, that 
the story of its miserable condition had been carried 
back to the Euphrates, and had moved the Jews in 
Babylonia to the uttermost, stirring up Nehemiah, among 
others, to try, at any cost of self-denial, to help the 
city of their fathers out of its calamities. At last, 
in tlie year B.C. 445, hope raised its head on the arrival 
of that dignitary in Jerusalem, with all the state of a 

1 Isa. lii. 9 ; liv. 12. 
370 



NEHEMIAH. 371 

cavalry escort, and the authority of an imperial governor, 
as the pasha of Judea. 

It was an omen of good, moreover, that he brought 
with him firmans for the free supply, from Lebanon, of 
all the timber that might be required for the city gates, 
the governor's palace, and a fortress for his attendant 
soldiery, to be erected on the north-west corner of the 
Temple enclosure. Zechariah had painted Jerusalem as 
a city without walls, " for the multitude of men and 
cattle in it,"^ but that, as yet, was far from being 
realised, or even possible ; for, though the prophet had 
predicted that " great would be the peace of her children," 
enemies still threatened it on every side.^ 

If any one could give new life to the community, it 
was Nehemiah. His private wealth aided his public 
authority, for it relieved the colony of a heavy burden, 
since he levied no requisitions or imposts, and not only 
maintained his state at his own cost, but was lavish 
alike in his hospitality and in his benefactions. That 
he possessed, besides, the qualities of a leader of men 
and a skilful diplomatist, was seen in his very first 
step. Without disclosing his intention to any one, he 
sallied forth on horseback, in the middle of the third 
or fourth night after his arrival, with a few attendants 
on foot, to make a circuit of the little city, and see 
for himself what would be needed, to make a besinninfr 
with the rebuilding of the walls. Going outside the 
circle of the former walls, apparently near the present 
Jaffa gate, on the west of the town, he made his way 
over the mounds of ruin that marked the line of the 
defences Nebuchadnezzar had thrown down nearly a 

1 Zech. ii. 4. 2 ig^. liy. 13. 



372 NEHEMIAH. 

hundred and fifty years before, and amidst the low hills, 
rough with wild growths, which spoke of the homes 
long buried beneath, in the fiery catastrophe which had 
closed the story of the city of his fathers, pressed pain- 
fully on, by the pool of Siloam, on the south-east, till 
he had made the circuit of the whole destroyed town. 

So carefully had he managed this survey, that no one 
knew of it. But it had put him in a position to act 
with intelligence, in his plans for the restoration of 
the walls, which, he clearly saw, must be his first concern. 
Calling an assembly of the chief citizens, he told them 
the walls must be rebuilt at once. As this was the 
word of a Persian governor, it was idle to discuss the 
proposal, while the slightest disobedience to his commands 
was impossible, as he wielded the despotic power of 
the Great King. The whole work to be done was 
distributed, forthwith, in short portions, to a small army 
of volunteers, who had caught the enthusiasm of the 
governor, and were ready to undertake the completion 
of their share. 

Believing that God at last had come to help them, 
especially as they saw the imperial firman, sanctioning 
all that was to be done, every one threw himself into 
the enterprise with the greatest energy. The rebuilding 
of the sheep-gate, at the north-east corner, was assigned 
to the High Priest. Xext to his portion came that of 
the men of Jericho. The goldsmiths, apothecaries, and 
merchants had, also, their separate pieces given them, 
ISTehemiah must have wished that all the work should 
be done of free will, though he might have enforced a 
portion on any one; for we read that, even at such 
a time, there were cravens so abject, as to hold back 



NEHEMIAH. 373 

from the great task. The men of Tekoa, a hamlet south 
of Bethlehem, are named as thus mean-spirited. The 
people of Mizpeh, the old home of Samuel, and the 
Gibeonites of the same district, cheerfully took a share, 
though their governor was the pasha of Syria : not 
Nehemiah. The head man of one-half of Jerusalem, 
with his daughters, became responsible for another 
length of wall, and the priests and Levites in and 
round Jerusalem were equally loyal. 

But not only the small communities near the city 
assisted. Bands of stout volunteers came, from around 
and beyond Hebron, quite a distance to the south. It 
is thus, incidentally, shown, that the new population 
had spread itself over a considerable extent of country, 
and that, if the mass of the people of Jerusalem were 
poor, there were not wanting others in easy circumstances, 
else there would have been no such trade for luxuries 
as is implied in the presence of "goldsmiths." But the 
rich were to prove themselves, before long, far inferior 
to their poorer brethren in real worth. 

The task, now fairly commenced, was no light one. 
Huge mounds of rubbish had to be removed from the 
line of the proposed walls ; the stones of the old wall 
to be carried off, so far as they were available, that 
they might be dressed afresh, and, after all this labour, 
they were to be built up into new walls. To do all 
this, moreover, there was a very limited supply of 
labour, in so small a population, and there was no 
money to hire outside assistance. The huge gateways 
themselves, with their two-leaved gates, their massive 
bars, and bolts, and locks, involved no little toil; and 
we may well believe that the rocky and very uneven 



374 NEHEMIAH. 

ground added to the difficulties. The labourers, besides, 
it is probable, were badly supplied with tools ; for even 
now, in Egypt, canal-beds are excavated with little more 
than the hands, aided by a few picks ; the rubbish being 
carried away on the head, in small baskets, as I have 
myself seen more than once. 

But a still more serious trouble soon appeared. Some 
of the volunteer labourers were able to maintain them- 
selves permanently, but many were helpless when their 
first poor stock of food was exhausted; for no one 
received wages. That they did not leave the work, seems 
to imply that, while the chief men came of their free 
choice, the gangs who did the hard work were " pressed," 
and not allowed to return home. This, also, is usual 
in the East, and, indeed, had been the system under 
Solomon, which led to the revolt of the ten tribes. 
Eeduced to the verge of starvation, these unfortunates 
had to make what terms they could with the richer 
citizens, to get food while raising the walls. But instead 
of finding sympathy, at such a time, from their brethren, 
for whom, much more than for themselves, the walls 
were needed, since they had nothing to protect, they 
were treated with the most unfeeling brutality. In 
defiance of the Law, food was doled out to them only 
in return for their mortgaging all they had to the 
usurers, — their small farms, vineyards, olive- yards, and 
houses, and, in the end, their personal liberty, and that 
of their sons and daughters ; who thus became slaves 
to brother Jews, though these mean souls were to reap, 
besides, well-nigh all the advantage gained by the labour 
thus fearfully costly to the wretched toilers. 

Such villainy on the one side, and such misery on 



NEHEMIAH. 375 

the other, touched Nehemiah to the quick. Summoning 
the extortioners to his presence, he told them what he 
thought of their behaviour, and then ordered them to 
appear before a general assembly of the citizens, which he 
presently called together. When this collected, he once 
more assailed the money-lenders. He himself had, to 
his utmost, redeemed Jewish slaves, at his own cost, 
from their heathen owners round about; but they were 
actually enslaving their brethren in return for a morsel 
of food, needed to keep them alive, while toiling to 
build walls for the common protection, but especially 
for the protection of the money-lenders themselves. 
They must at once cancel all their bonds, and give back 
the property they had seized. If they could be paid, 
hereafter, for the food-money they had advanced, either 
by the debtors themselves or by the community, they 
were to get their loans without interest ; if not, they 
must regard them as a free gift. Forced by very shame, 
the harpies had to submit, and were bound to their 
consent by a solemn oath administered by the priests. 

But other dangers loomed before Nehemiah. Sanballat, 
of Beth-horon, Tobiah, an Ammonite, and Geshem, an 
Arab chief froni the south, furious against the Jews, 
largely, perhaps, from the rough treatment of alien wives 
by them, tried hard to stop the finishing of the walls. 
But Nehemiah was too watchful. Arming part of the 
workmen, he pressed on the building so vigorously that, 
in spite of all hostile efforts, the city was erelong in a 
state of defence round its whole circuit. 



THE READING OF THE LAW, 

It was not until the population of Jerusalem had a 
chance of quiet, behind the shelter of the walls rebuilt by 
E'ehemiah, that Ezra the scribe recommenced his policy, 
of sharpening the observance of the Law. In this, he now 
had the support of a governor favoured at court, zealous 
in matters of rehgion, and unweariedly active. 

The first step was open to no harsh judgment. The 
new moon, which proclaimed the beginning of the seventh 
month, had been, for ages, a festival, apparently as the 
first after the close of the harvest season, and thus, 
virtually, as, afterwards, in fact, the beginning of a new 
year. ISTo work was done on it, and special offerings 
marked it, while its commencement was announced by 
trumpets, to remind all that it was " holy." ^ This old 
and venerated festival was chosen by Ezra, for a solemn 
assembly of the people from every part of the little 
Jewish territory, that he might cause the Law to be read 
publicly before them, and secure a pledge from them that, 
henceforth, it should be their exclusive guide in all things. 
A great multitude of men, women, and young people, able 
to understand what they heard, gathered at the appointed 
time, on a vacant space outside the water-gate. This was 
somewhere on the east slopes of the Temple hill, which 
are now steep, through the vast quantity of rubbish 

1 Lev. xxiii. 23-25. 
376 



THE READING OF THE LAW. 377 

accumulated from many sieges and changes, in the 
twenty-four centuries since, but then,, we may, suppose, 
very different. 

The finding of the Law, in the reign of King Josiah, 
had been an epoch in Jewish history. Ever since, it had 
been the glory of the race, and, especially in Babylon, 
during the exile from the Temple, it had become the 
absorbing study of a whole class of learned men, — the 
" scribes," whose lives were devoted to copying the sacred 
books, and giving authoritative expositions of their re- 
quirements. This they did, however, in such a spirit of 
word-splitting casuistry, that, in later times, the simple 
commands of Scripture branched out into an ever- 
increasing number of subtle refinements, which, long 
before Christ's day, had grown into a second law, as bind- 
ing as the original, and infinitely more ramified in its 
injunctions. In Ezra's time, we read (v. 8) that the 
Levites " gave the sense " of the passages recited from the 
Law ; and this can hardly mean less, than that they 
briefly pointed out their practical application to daily 
life, — a matter involving many casuistical definitions of 
special cases. 

There must have been many copies of the Law, in 
Babylon and in Judea; for nearly a hundred years had 
passed, since their fathers on the Euphrates had thrown 
themselves, with intense enthusiasm, into the multipli- 
cation of rolls of their sacred book. Yet, if a few rich 
people were able to boast of owning such a priceless 
treasure, the mass of the community must have been 
utterly ignorant of its contents, — a copy being altogether 
beyond their means, and no public opportunities of hearing 
its commands having been provided. 



378 THE READING OF THE LAW. 

What is meant by the " Book of the Law " is not by any 
means clear. It may have been only Deuteronomy ; but 
if so, it seems strange that the reading of it should have 
occupied days. More probably, it also contained at least 
a part of other books of the Pentateuch. The Temple 
dated from the reign of Solomon, and no priesthood, in 
antiquity, could act without sacred books, on the exact 
observance of all whose directions, the validity of their 
services absolutely depended ; so that there must have 
been sacred Hebrew books, then. And it would be 
strange, indeed, if the whole of one book survived till 
the reign of Josiah, and no portion of any of the others. 
As to the notion that the Pentateuch, except some 
miserable fragments, was created after the Exile, I have 
no respect for the theory, if only because each supporter 
has his own ideas of which parts are ancient, and 
which modern, and because each contradicts the other 
continually. 

A platform of wood, large enough to give accommoda- 
tion to a number, had been erected, and this Ezra 
ascended, accompanied by thirteen other priests, who 
stood on each side, making with him two companies of 
seven each. The people had been sitting, in Eastern 
fashion, on the ground, but as soon as the great scribe 
opened the sacred roll, they all rose to their feet, — as the 
rabbis say they had always done on such occasions, from 
the days of Moses. Before the reading began, Ezra 
" blessed the Lord," most probably in a prayer of thanks- 
giving, like that uttered by David, before the great 
assembly of the people, at the close of his life.^ The 
whole multitude responded with a solemn " Amen and 

1 1 Chron. xxix. 10 ff. 



THE HEADING OF THE LAW. 379 

amen," lifting up their hands to the heavens as they did 
so, and then bowing their heads till their foreheads 
touched the ground. 

The thirteen, and the Levites, then began the reading 
aloud, the people standing, as they still do in the 
synagogues, and as is done in the Episcopal, and some 
other churches, during the reading of the Gospel. Next 
followed the " giving the sense." There seems a question, 
indeed, whether Ezra himself did not read the Law, and 
leave the Levites only the exposition; but if thirteen 
men were needed to expound, one would think that one 
would hardly be able to do the whole reading. That a 
translation from Hebrew into Aramaic is not meant, by 
the offices of the Levites, is evident from the fact that 
the prophecies of Malachi, though in Hebrew, are of later 
date than this reading. 

The holy words had an immediate and striking effect ; 
for they fell on all with the full weight of novelty, and 
yet with the supreme authority of the voice of God. 
Weeping broke out over the whole crowd, and could 
only be stilled by Xehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites 
telling them, that this new moon of the seventh month 
was a holy day, on which it was not fitting to weep. 
Instead of sorrow, they were to go home and feast, and 
not to forget to send portions to all their poor brethren, 
for whom nothing was prepared. To rejoice was to 
honour God, and their doing so would secure that He 
should continue to be their strength. 

So the crowd, cheered by such words, " went their way, 
to eat and drink, and send portions, and to make great 
mirth, because they had understood the words that were 
declared to them." This may seem a strange way to 



P)80 THE READING OF THE LAW. 

sliow that ' the day was holy," but so the Levites of 
those times, and the Jewish people, even under the stern 
Ezra, honoured a day "holy unto the Lord their God." 
The Jewish Sabbath of Christ's age had, evidently, not 
been, as yet, invented by the rabbis ; for this day of 
"great mirth," kept as such with Ezra's sanction, and 
even by his directions, was a " Sabbath/' or, to use the 
Hebrew expression, " a sabbath of deep rest ; " that is, a 
pel feet Sabbath.^ 

1 Lev. xxiii. 24. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 

The first day of the reading of the Law to the assembled 
congregation of the Eeturned had closed with a high 
festival, amidst " great mirth/' the poor sharing in the 
universal joy through the generosity of their richer 
brethren. Next morning saw the chiefs of all the clans 
and sub-clans, including those of the priests and Levites, 
with Ezra " the scribe," reassembled to listen once more 
to the words of the Law, and "give heed to them." The 
multitude apparently remained at home. 

Among other portions read, we are told, were those 
which speak of the feast of tabernacles ; the great feast in 
the seventh month, so rich in festivals. The passages in 
which it is mentioned are noteworthy, as showing, in 
some degree, what is meant by the expression " the book 
of the Law," though the fact that the feast is introduced 
in more than one of the sections of the Pentateuch, 
forbids very definite conclusions.^ It is, however, very 
striking to find that the only allusion to the people being 
required to live in booths during the week of the feast 
is in Leviticus, — a proof that it, at least, was part of what 
was read ; for it would be preposterous to say that only 
a fragment of it then existed, or had existed before the 
Captivity, and that all except this section was an addition 
made in Babylon. 

1 Lev, xxiii. 33, 44 ; Num. xxix. 12-39 ; Deut, xvi. 13, 14. 

381 



382 THE FEAST OF TABEKXACLES. 

The Law required notice to be sent out that the feast 
would begin on the fifteenth day of the month, and last 
till the twenty-second. This was at once given, that the 
people might go out into the hills, and gather branches 
of olive, oleaster, myrtle, and palms, and of any other 
thick-leaved trees, with which to make booths, as tem- 
porary dwellings during the festival week, in remem- 
brance of the tents of the wilderness. When the day 
came, every one had prepared himself as was prescribed ; 
and a pleasant sight it must have been, to see the bands 
of people, from all parts around, gathering towards 
Jerusalem, laden with their boughs, and to have watched 
them as they set about making shelters of them, " every 
one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts (or 
yards), and in the courts of the house of God, and in the 
open space before the water gate (outside the wall), and 
in the open space at the gate of Ephraim (inside the 
walls)." Such a full and stately observance of the feast 
had not been known since the time of Joshua ; though we 
have proof that it had been kept, we know not with what 
regularity, through the ages since the conquest.^ 

The zeal to hear the Law still animated all, and, with 
Ezra as their religious head, they were not likely to be 
allowed to forget it. Each day, " from the first to the 
last,'' we are told, "he read in the book of the law of 
God." On the eighth day, the twenty-second of the 
month, a great assembly was held, as the Law prescribed, 
for special religious services. The twenty-third was left 
to the ordinary business of the people; but on the twenty- 
fourth another assembly was gathered, the multitude 
having prepared for it by fasting, and attending in black 

^ 1 Kings viii. 65 ; 2 Cbron. vii. 9. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 383 

sackcloth, the sign of mourning ; their heads strewn with 
earth, to mark the depth of their sadness. A sense of 
shortcoming, which had been felt when the Law was first 
read, but had for the time been repressed, still weighed 
on them. Public confession alone could relieve them, 
and this was now to be solemnly made. Any heathen 
citizens were required to keep apart ; as the service was 
one for Hebrews only. Three hours passed in listening 
to the Law, the Levites reading it from the raised plat- 
form, after a solemn, loudly uttered, invocation of 
Jehovah. 

Then came three hours of public confession of their 
own sins and those of their fathers, made to God 
through some of the Levitical spokesmen, or, perhaps, as 
the Greek translation has it, through Ezra. Jehovah, it 
proclaimed, was the one God, the Creator of all things, 
and had chosen Abraham, given him his name, and 
made a covenant with him. God had saved them from 
Egypt, and led them through the wilderness. Eor them 
He had overthrown the old inhabitants of Palestine, 
doing mighty wonders in their behalf. Yet they had 
often rebelled against Him ; and this, at last, had led to 
their being handed over to their enemies, and carried 
away into captivity. Oh that their covenant-keeping 
God, in His great mercy, might consider what they had 
suffered, though in just punishment; for, from the 
highest to the lowest, they had all transgressed. They 
were, even now, only servants of the alien, in the land of 
their fathers, and were sorely oppressed. Might pity be 
shown them ! 

This confession was followed by their making a new 
covenant, to honour God's Law ; all the chief personages 



384 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 

duly signing a written document, pledging the people, as 
their representatives, that Lhey would, henceforth, be 
sincerely faithful to all that the Law demanded. The 
walls, though some time finished, had not as yet been 
dedicated This solemnity, therefore, was now celebrated, 
amidst great rejoicings, and the usual reading of a portion 
of the Law. Such continual honour paid to the sacred 
writings could not be without, at least, an external effect. 
One that is mentioned was the formal separation of all 
foreigners from religious relations with the Jews, as they 
had been in reference to marriages. 

Nehemiah had remained in Jerusalem twelve years, 
and had been able to raise the city walls, and formally 
dedicate them, but had now to return to Susa, where he 
seems to have remained for seven years, so that, when he 
once more reached the Holy City, nineteen years had 
passed since his first coming to it. Ezra's vehemence 
had failed to gain his end at all fully, for the separation 
necessary, between the alien and the Hebrew, was no less 
clamant on Nehemiah's return, than it had been when 
the wives were dismissed, nearly twenty years before. 
The tithes, also, were not paid, so that the Temple service 
could not be rightly carried on, from the starved Levites 
having to go off, to live on their spots of ground, away 
from Jerusalem. This also was for the moment re- 
formed ; but the prophecies of Malachi leave faint hope 
of the improvement having been permanent. 

But still another abuse offended JSTehemiah. He saw 
men treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and carrying 
home sheaves on their asses, and bringing into Jerusalem 
wine, grapes, figs, produce, and goods of all kinds, on the 
holy day. Moreover, a number of Phoenician fishermen. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 385 

find traders in many articles, exposed these for sale on 
the Sabbath, in the Jewish towns and villages, and in 
Jerusalem itself. Such desecration of the sacred day was 
intolerable. The chief men of Judah were accordingly 
summoned before the governor. They had power to 
prevent such abuses, but probably winked at them, on 
account of payments made to do so, — as the priests in 
Christ's day forgot the sanctity of the Temple grounds, 
because they drew large revenues from letting out spaces, 
for traders in things used in the services. 

But JSTehemiah made short work of their excuses, if 
they intended to make any. Did they not know that 
their fathers had acted in the same shanj^ful way, with 
the result that God brought on the nation all the misery 
it had suffered ? And yet, here were they bringing still 
more wrath upon Israel, by profaning the Sabbath. They 
had a master to deal with, and soon felt it. An order 
presently issued, that, at dusk each Friday evening, the 
town gates should be shut, and that they should not be 
re-opened till Saturday evening, at the same time, when 
the Sabbath was over. To prevent disobedience, he set 
pickets of his own guards at each gate, to prevent any 
burden being brought in on the Sabbath. 

The traders and hucksters, no doubt, were sorely 

annoyed at such interference with their business, but 

they fancied they might get some market, by setting up 

their booths outside the walls, though their hopes must 

have been limited, when they reflected that the citizens 

were shut in all the Sabbath, and could not get to them 

to buy. But Nehemiah w^ould suffer no compromise. If 

they made their appearance any more, he told them, he 

would lay hands on them ; and such a threat meant . a 

2 B 



386 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 

great deal. The game was no longer worth the candle ; 
and they packed up their property and went, to return 
no more. 

This evil removed, we may presume the gates were 
once more opened on the Sabbath ; for it would have 
been dreadful to pen up the citizens, within the walls, 
for any length of time, on the great day of the week. 
But, to secure as far as possible, a check to any of the 
evils he had put down, JSTehemiah appointed bands of 
Levites, specially " cleansed," to take charge of the gates, 
"and sanctify the Sabbath day." Eigid observance of 
Sabbath laws was thus already enforced in those times, 
but they were as yet such as, even now, we feel to be 
wise and desirable, on the ground of the general public 
interests. It could only have been in later times, that 
the "traditions of the elders" gradually added the 
numberless restrictions and refinements against which 
Christ protested. 

Yet it is strange to think of so exact, and so very just, 
a strictness in some directions, while even Ezra not only 
sanctioned a public festivity, " kept with great mirth," to 
be held on the holy day, but sent away the people to 
enjoy it, with "eating and drinking" and all the light- 
heartedness of a great holiday, though they were even 
then weeping, at the remembrance of their sins against 
the Law, as brought to their conscience by hearing the 
reading of the sacred book. It was no day, they were 
told, for weeping. Let them feast that day, and have a 
fast some other. Strange to us ; but there it is — written. 
The sour-faced Sabbath of Christ's day had evidently not 
been as yet invented, although the decorous honour of 
the time of rest was as obligatory then as now. 



MALACHI. 

The patriot-prophets of the Exile had kindled a partial 
and temporary enthusiasm, in the settlements on the 
Khabour, by pictures of the glory in store for their stony 
and petty fatherland, and its mountain capital, if, only, 
its sons tore themselves away from the seductions of 
Babylonia, and undertook to "raise the fallen tent" of 
their country, by restoring the Jewish state, in its ancient 
territory. But at least a hundred years had passed, from 
the arrival in Judea of the first body of pilgrim fathers, 
under Zerubbabel; the Temple had been rebuilt for at 
least eighty years, and Jerusalem, if still weak and small, 
had, in some measure, settled down into peace and quiet 
municipal life. The lofty enthusiasm of the days of the 
return from Babylonia had long vanished, and in its place 
an apathy towards the old religion, a low tone of morals, 
and a wide corruption of the community, had filled the 
better-minded with poignant regret and deep alarm. 

Under these circumstances the last of the prophets ap- 
peared : Malachi, " My messenger," — a name possibly per- 
sonal, possibly official, covering the anonymity of the voice 
thus raised for the old faith. The picture he gives of his 
times is startling. ISTot only was there no sign of the 
glory promised by the prophets of the Exile, but locusts 
devoured the crops, and drought withered the clusters on 

387' 



388 MALACHI. 

the vine.^ Edom, the hereditary enemy of Israel, threat- 
ened Judea.^ Worse than all, religion had almost perished 
from among the people. The priests " despised the name 
of Jehovah," offering unclean things on His altar, and then 
speaking lightly of it. To present to God a creature for 
sacrifice, blind or lame, or in any way sick or injured, was 
contrary to the Law ; ^ yet they accepted such abomina- 
tions, and offered them as good enough. Still more ; where 
only a male of the flock was allowed to be offered, they 
let deceivers, who had one, present, in its stead, a female, 
and they actually offered even beasts taken from their 
owners by violence.* 

Things, indeed, had come to such a pass that the prophet 
cries out, " that there were one among you, (0 priests), 
that would shut the doors of the Temple, that ye might 
not kindle fire on the altar at all, (and thus prevent such 
scandals) ! " ^ God would rather have the heathen than 
such priests and people as those of Jerusalem. " For from 
the rising of the sun," says He, " to its going down, My 
name is great among the nations, and in every place in- 
cense is offered to My name, and a pure offering, (not pol- 
luted offerings like yours) ; and My name is great among 
the heathen nations, (though despised among you)." ^ But 
the guilty priests would suffer for their wickedness. God, 
says the prophet, will cover them with the dung of the 
beasts they offer thus contemptuously, and they will be 
carried out with the rest of the dung, and thrown on the 
heaps with it. Moreover, He will hinder the seed of their 
glebes from growing, and give them no harvest ; and He 
will curse the tithes, the ransom moneys, and all other 

1 Mai. iii. 11. 2 Mai. i. 4. ^ Lev. xxii. 22 ; Deut. xv. 21. 

* Mai i. 8, 13, 14. ^ Mai. i. 10. ^ Mai. i. 11. 



MALACHI. 389 

perquisites they receive.^ ^o- wonder, for they had de- 
graded their office, and caused many to do wrong by their 
teaching, saying whatever would pay best.^ 

As to the people at large, two sins, especially, lay at 
their doors; they had, in many cases, married heathen 
wives, and they divorced even lawful wives on the most 
unworthy pretences.^ This appears to mark the prophecy 
as earlier than the stern reform carried out by Ezra. It 
was now declared a sin against the nation.* " May Jeho- 
vah root out the man who marries a heatheness, and all 
his race," cries the prophet, " from the tents of Jacob, that 
no one of his posterity may ever present an offering to 
Him ! " ^ The prevailing wickedness has wearied out the 
patience of Jehovah, though He has borne with them so 
long that they mock at the warnings of the godly, and 
sneeringly ask, "Where is the God of judgment (with 
whom you have threatened us) ? " ^ 

But they will be rudely awakened ; for, " Behold," says 
Jehovah,^ " I will send Elijah the prophet, (brought back 
from the world of spirits,) as My messenger, to prepare 
the way before Me, by turning the heart of the fathers to 
the children, and the heart of the children to their 
fathers."^ The wide confusion and corruption had broken 
up family peace, which must be restored, before Israel 
could be fit to receive its God. The powerful words of 
the great prophet, so stern and earnest, will be needed, as 
the line of prophets was to end with Malachi himself. 
Then, when Elijah shall have fulfilled his mission, " the 
Lord whom they were seeking, who is the messenger of 

1 Mai. ii. 2, 3. 2 Mai. ii. 8, 9. 3 Mai. ii. 10-16. 

4 Mai. ii. 10. 5 Mai. ii. 12. 6 Mai. ii. 17. 

? Mai. iii. 1. 8 Mai. iv. 5, 6. 



390 MALACHI. 

the covenant for whom they cry out/' would come, " saith 
Jehovah of hosts/' He is the " Messiah," — that is, " the 
anointed of God," — and His mission will be to purify the 
land from its sins, sitting in stern judgment on trans- 
gressors. But who may abide the day of His coming ? 
and who shall stand when He appeareth ? for He will be 
like a smelter's furnace-fire (which burns away all dross), 
and like the lye of the fuller (which cleanses out all im- 
purities). The priesthood will be His special care. They 
ought to have been gold and silver, for purity of life and 
teaching, but they have become, in great part, dross and 
worthless alloy. All this, however, will the messenger of 
the covenant fiercely burn and purge out, by His judg- 
ments ; for fire destroys all but the pure metal, — burning 
up dross with resistless glow. Bad priests will be cut off, 
and then, when the priesthood is thoroughly purified, its 
members, now worthy of their office, will no longer pollute 
offerings by their unworthiness ; and thus the offering of 
Judah and Jerusalem will again be pleasant to Jehovah, 
as in long past times. 

The priesthood thus purged of its worthless members, 
and acceptable sacrifices offered to Jehovah, He will, then, 
Himself descend, and institute judgment on all the evil- 
doers among the people, as a whole. "And I will come 
near to you to be your judge, and (long though you have 
thought My delay in the past), I will now be swift to 
witness against all your sins. Against the dealers in the 
black arts among you, against the adulterers, against those 
who make false oaths, and against those who grind the 
hireling in his wages, or oppress the widow or fatherless, 
or wrong the stranger, and do not fear Me, Jehovah." 
"For it is only because I am Jehovah, fulfilling My threat- 



MALACHI. 391 

eniiigs to destroy the wicked, that you, the true among 
My people, — the sons of Jacob, — are not utterly consumed 
by these evil ones." Or, as we may render it : "I change 
not, but look at your course. Even from old times you 
have turned from My laws, and have not kept them. Yet 
so great is My patience and love, that, instead of consum- 
ing you, as I might well have done, I now lift up My voice 
and invite you to return, after all, to Me, that I may be 
free to return to you." 

But what answer did God receive ? They only asked, 
" What dost Thou mean by our returning ? In what have 
we gone away from Thee ? " " Do you think it right,'* 
asks God, in reply, " to rob Me ? Yet you have done it." 
" How ? " " Why, thus ; you have defrauded Me in not 
paying your tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with 
the curse, and yet your whole nation are continually de- 
frauding Me in these things. The curse is seen in your 
withered fields, and the locust swarms that devour what 
is left. But bring all the tithes due to the Temple into 
the storehouses there, that there may be food for those 
who serve Me in the holy house, and see if I do not send 
copious rain, and rebuke the devouring locust, and keep 
your vine from casting its fruit before it be ripe, and 
make you so prosperous that all nations shall call you 
happy, and pronounce you a delightsome land." 



QUEEN ESTHER. 

The story of Esther takes us back jfifty years before the 
time of Xehemiah, who returned from the court of Susa, 
or Shusan, about the year 433, to Jerusalem, while the 
great feast in the palace of Xerxes, with which the Book 
of Esther opens, was held in the year 483 before Christ. 
In 486 Darius had died; and his son Xerxes, the King 
Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther, reigned in his stead. 

The Persian monarchs of the line of Darius had four 
residences, in different parts of their dominions, to suit 
the climate of the seasons. They spent the spring at 
Babylon ; the summer at Ecbatana, among the cool 
mountains of Media; the autumn at Persepolis; and 
the winter at Susa, the Shusan of Esther. This city 
was about a hundred and fifty miles north of the head 
of the Persian Gulf, in the mountainous province of 
Susiana, east of the Tigris. Shining rivers, among which 
was the Eul?eus, or Ulai of Daniel, beautified the valley 
in which it lay, shut in by a rampart of lofty mountains. 
A city had long stood on this site, but it had been 
sacked by Sardanapalus of Assyria, about the year 650 B.C. 
Erom the statement of the plunder carried off, as given 
in the annals of the conqueror, it must have been a splendid 
and very wealthy place. 

It remained obscure and ruined tili Cambyses, the 
son of Uyrus, a century after the Assyrian catastrophe, 

392 



QUEEN ESTHER. 393 

determined to restore its grandeur. The Persians having 
no architecture of their own, Cambyses sent a great body 
of workmen from Egypt, so famous for its palaces and 
temples, to build a mighty palace for him in this old 
royal city ; but his death, soon after, left it to Darius 
to carry out the design. The vast mass of structures 
included in the palace were, therefore, in their brilliant 
newness, if, indeed, entirely finished throughout, when 
Xerxes ascended the throne, in B.C. 486. 

Tlie campaigns of Persia in Egypt and Asia Minor, 
countries linked with each other by various close alliances, 
had led Cyrus, and after him Darius, to attempt the 
complete conquest of the Greek states on both sides of 
the ^gean Sea. This scheme, which threatened to 
overwhelm the western world in a flood of Asiatic 
barbarism and despotism, was defeated four years before 
the death of Darius, by the victory of Miltiades and 
the Athenians, at Marathon, over invading hosts of 
Orientals. This turning-point in the history of the world 
marked the year 490. Xerxes was determined to make 
another effort. So great an enterprise, however, required 
long preparations, and, to ensure that these should be 
vigorous, it was imperative that the great officers of 
the hundred and twenty-seven provinces, stretching from 
India to Ethiopia, embraced in the mighty empire of 
Persia, should be summoned to the presence of the Great 
King. The number of troops to be raised in each satrapy, 
their equipment and maintenance, the appointment of 
commanding officers, the lines of march, the date of 
starting, and of rendezvous at some common centre, and 
countless other essential matters, needed to be discussed 
and settled; not to speak of the decision on the details 



394 QUEEN ESTHER. 

of the plan of campaign. The meeting of such a galaxy 
of the magnates of the empire, moreover, would kindle 
that enthusiasm which was the vital breath of such a 
stupendous undertaking. 

Accordingly, in B.C. 483, the third year of the reign 
of Xerxes, all the satraps, with their gorgeous retinues 
and high officials, gathered, by royal summons, at Susa, 
attended by an imposing display of the forces of Media 
and Persia. The deliberations lasted for six months, 
doubtless with great pomp of feasting and luxurious 
entertainment. At length they ended, their close being 
celebrated by a grand banquet, to all who had been 
entertained in the immense circuit of the palace, in 
which, we are told, fifteen thousand men sat down 
each day at table, at a cost of ninety thousand pounds 
daily. 

The great dining-hall in which the banquet was held, 
seven days being needed to feast the vast numbers in- 
vited, has recently been excavated, and is found to have 
enclosed a space of an acre and a half, with a double 
portico on three of its sides. Its flat roof was supported 
by fiuted columns, over eighteen feet in diameter, elabo- 
rately decorated, and surmounted by a cornice of two 
great bulls' heads. From the lofty tops of this forest 
of marble or porphyry columns, the double-headed bulls 
gleamed down, with horns, feet, eyes, and necks covered 
with thin plates of gold. Under a network of cedar 
rafters, resting on cedar cornices, the feast was spread. 
The great walls glittered with enamelled bricks, covered 
with the most exquisite ornamental work. A cornice 
of enamelled tiles, of turquoise blue, rose above, and 
screens of the finest wood-carving, with hangings of 



QUEEN ESTHER. 395 

the three royal colours, white, green, and purple-blue, 
veiled the many entrances, and were looped by cords 
of fine linen and purple, to silver cylinders, or marble 
pillars. The dining- couches were of silver and gold, 
the pavement of alabaster, white and black marble, 
and mother-of-pearl, over which were spread countless 
carpets of the finest looms of Babylonia and Sardis. 
Everything else was in keeping. The very wine-goblets 
were of gold, and the finest vintages flowed like water. 
High above all the carousers, sat Xerxes, on a golden 
throne, under a crimson canopy, embroidered with gold 
and resting on golden supports. 

But the rejoicings were destined to have a touch of 
the tragic before they closed. On the seventh day, 
when Xerxes had inflamed himself with wine, he so 
far forgot his dignity and the rules of state propriety, 
as to order the seven court eunuchs to bring in his 
chief queen Vashti, that he might let the company see 
her charms. But her majesty had more respect to the 
king's honour and her own, than to expose herself thus, 
before a mob of half-drunken nobles, contrary to the 
rules of Eastern modesty, and would not obey. It was 
enough. She had enemies, of course, among the courtiers ;• 
and hence "the wise men," when consulted, advised 
the infuriated king to dismiss her, which he accordingly 
did. 

Shortly after, he set out for Greece, and returned 
to Susa only at the end of four years. Vashti was gone. 
Who should take her place ? Finally a young Jewess 
was chosen by Xerxes, in ignorance of her nationality. 
She was the cousin of a Jew who held some post in 
the huge palace population. This relative, Mordecai 



396 QUEEN ESTHER. 

by name, was fortunate enough to discover a plot laid 
against the king's life, which was duly revealed to Xerxes 
by the new queen, — Esther. The disclosure proved, at 
a later time, of the highest importance to the interests 
of Mordecai. 

The East is the very seed-plot of such crooked in- 
trigues ; and another plot was contrived by the highest 
of the dignitaries of the court, — Haman, apparently a 
' last survivor of the chiefs of the Amalekites, and hence 
a hereditary enemy of the Jew. Finding that he was 
slighted by Mordecai, who was evidently a Jew, he 
vowed vengeance against all the race, so far as they 
were to be found in the wide bounds of the empire. 
But this, again, was discovered by Mordecai, who soon 
found means to tell the bad news to Esther. She, 
perhaps, might keep the king from permitting the crime 
to be carried out. It was dangerous to approach him, 
when not summoned to do so ; but she would perish 
if the plot was carried out, while, if she succeeded, 
she would save, not only her own life, but the lives 
of her people over the whole empire. Strong-minded, 
and loyal to her cousin and her people, she resolved 
to risk all, in the attempt to save their lives and her 
own. 

At her request, a fast of three days was kept by 
all the Jews in Susa, while Esther herself, and her 
maidens, fasted inside the palace. The three sad days 
over, the queen prepared for her perilous task. Putting 
on her royal apparel, she boldly went into the inner 
court of- the palace, from which she could be seen by 
the king, who, at the moment she had chosen, was 
sitting on his throne. It was a daring act ; for the 



QUEEN ESTHER. 397 

fears of despotism had made it a law, that any one 
who entered the inner court, unsummoned, should be 
put to death, unless the king should hold out his golden 
sceptre, as a sign that their life was to be spared. 
Would Xerxes hold it out now ? Her anxiety was soon 
relieved; for, when he saw the queen standing in the 
court, he was moved kindly towards her, and held out 
Ihe symbol of forgiveness and favour. She, therefore, 
approached the earthly lord of life and death, and, as 
wa-s required, touched the top of the sceptre. Xerxes 
welcomed her with effusion ! What did she wish ? 
Only let her tell him, and she should have it, even 
" to the half of his kingdom." 

The result is known. Measures were taken which 
not only prevented a massacre of the Jews, but enabled 
them to inflict heavy revenge on their enemies, — a spirit 
in which, unfortunately, we find even Esther indulging 
to a painful extent. Meanwhile, Haman fell under the 
displeasure of his master, and, with all his sons, was 
hung up on a great pole, on which he had intended to 
have hung Mordecai 



LOOKING BACK. 

The contrast between the dreams of poetry or enthusiasm, 
and the cold realities of experience, is as noticeable in 
the life of a race as in that of an individual. The 
laureates of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, no 
doubt, indulged in the most glowing visions of the future 
of their respective countries, though, as was inevitable 
under a despotism, mainly in prophecies of the undying 
grandeur of the reigning dynasty. But the site of 
Babylon is a wide labyrinth of marsh and silent waste. 
Mneveh, for centuries before Christ, had lain hidden so 
deeply beneath the mounds of its own ruin, that even its 
name had been forgotten ; and Egypt, for millenniums, 
has been the prey of successive conquerors. 

In the same way, the Hebrews pictured for themselves, 
while still beyond the Jordan, a bright career of peace 
and prosperity, only to find before them the bitter reali- 
ties of the times of the judges, and the troubled centuries 
of their kings ; ending in deportation to Assyria and 
Babylon. The fortunes of those who returned were no 
less disappointing. Instead of the national splendour and 
glory they fondly anticipated, they had to endure long- 
continued misery, with a capital left open to its enemies 
for nearly a hundred years, and were never, except for a 
brief moment, to taste national independence. 

Only about forty- three thousand persons, all told, had 

398 



LOOKING BACK. S99 

listened to the appeals of the prophets, and set out for 
the fatherland, from the fertile plains of Babylonia, to 
find, on their arrival, that enemies held the land so com- 
pletely, that an edict from Babylon was needed, to secure 
them a small district immediately round the stony 
heights of Jerusalem. In six months the colonists had 
raised rude homes for themselves, among the dreary 
mounds of rubbish under which the Holy City lay buried; 
had organised themselves as a community ; and had set 
up a huge altar of rough stones, from which rose the 
smoke of the mornincr and evenincr sacrifice. 

The fourteenth month of their residence had come 
before even the foundation-stone of their Temple was laid ; 
and eighteen weary years of opposition and anxiety were 
to pass before it was finished. The delay, indeed, was 
ominous ; for it rose from the exclusiveness of the leaders 
of the new settlers, who would have no friendly rela- 
tions with the Samaritan population, and rejected their 
advances, though at once modest and flattering; their 
offer of alliance being urged on the ground of a common 
homage to Jehovah, and the belief that they, also, be- 
longed to the Jewish stock, — which they probably did, in 
many cases. Some, no doubt, were of mixed blood, but 
only with other Semitic races ; and not a few must have 
been the descendants of the population, left undisturbed 
by Assyria, in the country districts, when the northern 
tribes were carried off to Mneveh. On the other hand, 
the small band in Judea must have been largely of doubtful 
ancestry, since marriages with the native populations had 
always been numerous. 

At last, fifty-eight years after the consecration of the 
poor, small Temple, that had risen in place of the glory of 



400 LOOKING BACK. 

the sanctuary built under Solomon, a fresh start was 
given to Jerusalem, by the arrival from Babylon of a 
second caravan, under Ezra, in 458 B.C. It proved, how- 
ever, that this personage had little interest in anything, 
except the reconstitution of the community on the basis 
of rigid ex clusiveness ; in carrying out which he. embroiled 
the colony w^ith its neighbours, still more seriously than 
Zerubbabel had done, nearly eighty years before. He 
insisted that all wives of other than Jewish race, though 
mothers of famihes, should be dismissed, though their 
husbands, in marrying them, had only done what had 
been recognised as a custom of their fathers, which hitherto 
had not been denounced, or even challenged. 

Thirteen years after Ezra's arrival — that is, more than 
ninety years after the Eeturn — the position of the colony 
was still miserable in the extreme, — thanks, no doubt, 
in great part, to the policy of Zerubbabel, at first, and of 
Ezra, two generations later. But, now, at last, a strong 
man was coming, who, while maintaining the invidious 
arrangements of the past, would take the steps necessary 
for the protection of Jerusalem by walls, and thus give it 
a possibility of development. Nehemiah found things as 
bad, morally, as they well could be ; so little success, in 
any true sense, had followed the harshness of Ezra. 

The short tract which bears the name of the prophet 
Malachi, and the few incidents recorded in that which 
bears the name of IN'ehemiah, reveal a community of a 
very low moral type. The well-to-do few are actually 
described as making slaves of their fellow-Hebrews, to 
reimburse themselves for food, allowed them while they 
were building the town wall, — so vital a benefit to the 
rich usurers, and so indispensable a necessity for the city 



LOOKING BACK. 401 

and state. It shows them, moreover, taking everything 
the toiling peasant had — his land, his crop, his very wife 
and children — to pay for the daily bread of the wretched 
public labourer, in such a crisis. We see the priesthood 
and the Levite left to starve, by the withholding of the 
tithes, and the community, at large, palming off on 
Jehovah " polluted bread," and blind, lame, torn, and sick 
creatures for their offerings ; thus trying to cheat even 
God Almighty, to save a few pence. 

Nor had the hard policy of Ezra remained without its 
due fruit ; for the prophet tells us, that divorce without 
just grounds had become frequent, causing such agony to 
the innocent victims that they, as it were, covered " the 
altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with 
crying out." He adds, that the forbidden black arts of 
heathenism, adultery, false swearing, defrauding the hire- 
ling in his wages, defrauding, also, the widow and the 
fatherless, most despicable forms of greedy meanness, and 
turning aside the alien from his legal rights, were so 
common, that he, himself, testified against the community, 
on account of such wickedness, before the Lord. 

The strange contrast, of the strictness with which 
trading on the Sabbath was condemned by the ecclesias- 
tical authorities in Jerusalem, while the community was 
actually on one occasion told to cease weeping for their 
sins, though it was the Sabbath on which the Law was 
being read to them, and to go home, and eat, and drink, 
and make merry, waiting till another time to be sad, 
seems very curious to our ideas of the proper observance 
of the holy day. 

The story of Esther is still read among the Jews, at the 
yearly feast called Purim; the synagogue congregation 

2 c 



402 LOOKING BACK. 

which hears it breaking out into the wildest uproar of 
hissing and execration, at the mention of the name of 
Plaman. It is a strange fact that, in the Hebrew Bible, 
the names of Haman's sons are put one over the other, 
to indicate that the poor creatures were thus hung up, 
below their father, on the gallows he had prepared for 
Mordecai. 



. THE YOUTH OF DANIEL, 

The close of the seventh century before Christ was an 
eventful time in the history of Western Asia. In its last 
ten years, NincA'eh, and with it the great Assyrian Empire, 
fell before the attack of its hereditary enemies, Babylon, 
Media, and Elam; the throne of Babylon having been 
previously seized by the Assyrian viceroy, Nabopolassar, 
the father of the mighty Nebuchadnezzar, who took ad- 
vantage of the troubles of his imperial master at Mneveh, 
to rise against him, and found an independent throne. 
Then came Pharaoh-Necho, from Egypt, hoping to seize 
some of the Assyrian provinces west of the Euphrates, 
and thus extend the dominions of the Nile valley to the 
limits they had proudly reached in the grand days of 
Thothmes III., nine hundred years before. 

But his triumph proved short-lived. Nebuchadnezzar, 
the generalissimo of his father, now Sultan of Babylonia, 
crushed him in the battle of Carchemish, and then pressed 
after his retreating forces, across Western Asia, to the 
borders of Egypt, which he proposed to humble, by a 
decisive campaign, beyond the power of future aggression, 
outside its African limits. But at that moment came 
news that Nabopolassar was dead, and a hasty march 
across the desert, with a picked body of light-armed 
troops, was instantly begun by Nebuchadnezzar, to secure 

40J 



404 THE YOUTH OF DANIEL. 

for himself the throne of his father before any dispute 
could rise about the succession. 

The good King Josiah, of Judah, had been killed in the 
disastrous battle of Megiddo, fought in rash audacity by 
him, as a vassal of the powers on the Euphrates, against 
Pharaoh-N"echo ; and Jerusalem had begun its last swift 
descent towards ruin, through the accession to its throne 
of Jehoiakim, the worthless son of the dead king, whom 
the little nation so deeply mourned. Awed by Pharaoh- 
Necho's victory at Megiddo, the new monarch had revolted 
from vassalage to Babylonia, the heir of the Assyrian 
Empire, his former suzerain, and had thrown himself into 
the arms of Egypt. Eor this, Nebuchadnezzar, on his 
march to the Nile, had summoned Jerusalem to surrender, 
in the third year of the new reign, but contented himself 
with Jehoiakim's submission, and a formal acknowledcr- 
ment of conquest, sealed by the delivery to the Chaldeans, 
of part of the gold and silver vessels used in the Temple 
worship, which were carried off, and laid up in the 
" treasure-house of his god in Babylon," and by receiving 
a number of the chief youth of Judea, as hostages, to be 
brought up at Babylon; that they might, from their open- 
ing manhood, be Chaldean in sympathies and loyalty, and 
thus influence their countrymen in the future. As things 
turned out, however, they never returned; Jerusalem 
passing from one revolt to another, till, in B.C. 588, it was 
l)urned to the ground, its walls thrown down, and its 
Temple left a heap of smoking ruins. 

Among the youths thus led in the train of the Great 
King, for education at his court, were four whose names 
have come down to us, — Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and 
Azariah ; the favoured few, chosen^ from perhaps a large 



THE YOUTH OF DANIEL. 405 

number, by the lord high chamberlain, Ashpenaz, on ac- 
count of their freedom from any blemish, their personal 
beauty, and their intellectual brightness, for special pre- 
paration to act as pages to Nebuchadnezzar, and to stand 
before him. Babylonia had for ages been famous for its 
great schools, in which the priests and learned men were 
trained in the " wisdom " of the day, including, among 
other things, more especially, the study of astrological 
science and the magic arts, by which divination was 
thought possible. A sign from the gods was held essen- 
tial before any step could be taken in affairs of state ; and 
hence, dreams, omens, the relative position of the planets 
at a given moment, and much else, demanded vast in- 
dustry to class, for explanation as to their import, under 
fixed rules, contained in countless treatises. 

In accordance with Oriental custom, youths chosen for 
court training were taken into the palace, and maintained 
at the king's expense; eating from the royal kitchens, and 
in all respects treated as members of his vast household. 
They also received new Babylonian names. "Daniel," 
which means " The judge of God," — that is, " One who 
judges in the name of God" (or. My judge is God), — 
was put aside for " Belteshazzar," — " Protect his life ! " 
"Hananiah" became " Shadrach," — a word of doubtful 
meaning. " Mishael " — " Who is like God ? " — was hence- 
forth known as " Meshach," — a name not yet explained ; 
and "Azariah," — "Whom Jehovah helps," — became " Abed- 
nebo" (not "nego"), "The servant of (the god) Nebo," 

If, however, the officials supposed that, by changing 
the names of the youths, they would change their prin- 
ciples, and turn them from Jehovah to the gods of Baby- 
lon, they were in a great error. Ever since the " Law " had 



406 THE YOUTH OP D.\XIEL. 

been found in a lumber-room of the Temple, during the 
reign of Josiah, the homage paid to it had been increas- 
ingly profound ; and it is, hence, nothing strange, that 
Daniel and his companions resolved to be faithful to it, 
even to the extent of observing minutely its rules of 
Levitical "cleanness"' in regard to their food. The "king's 
meat" might be part of sacrifices offered to idols, or it 
might have been inspected with heathen rites, and the 
wine which he drank might have been defiled by priestly 
invocations or otherwise. Daniel, therefore, begcred the 
high chamberlain, or perhaps the chief butler, to excuse 
him from taking food or drink which might thus be 
unlawful in a Jew to accept. 

Fortunately, Daniel was in high fa\'Our with this official, 
but, in terror at the awful absolutism of the king, which 
could in a moment, on any ground, order his execution, 
he hesitated to allow so great an innovation. It might 
tell on the health of his young friend and his companions, 
and be fatal to himself, if the king heard of it. Daniel, 
however, overcame his scruples by proposing that the 
change might be permitted for a short time, by way 
of experiment ; the result, after ten days, determining 
whether there was ground for alarm. 

The exchange thus made, for conscience' sake, was no 
light one. Meals from tlie royal table, of every possible 
delicacy, and wine of the finest growth, must have had 
great temptations to most. Instead of all this, however, 
the four Hebrews asked and obtained a simple vegetable 
diet, such as was eaten in half-fasts, — mainly, it woidd 
seem, of legumes, such as beans and lentils, with no drink 
but water. But the trial was in Daniel's favour ; for he 
and his friends, at the end of the ten davs, were declared 



THE YOUTH OF DANIEL. 407 

to look better than any of the others who had fared 
royally. 

ISTor can there be a doubt that the disuse of wine would 
be of benefit to them ; for health does not need stimulants, 
and, as we see from the experiments of John Hunter, even 
wine, causes a feverishness hurtful to many, but especially 
to the young. Their brain, also, as well as their bodies, 
was the better for their self-denial, the four being declared 
by Nebuchadnezzar to be " ten times " as good, in " all 
matters of wisdom and understanding," as all the " magi- 
cians and astrologers " through the land. 

Simplicity in diet, and total abstention from strong 
drink, have thus the great support, as supremely desir- 
able, of this famous illustration. Well would it be for all 
workers, whether with hand or brain, if, like Daniel, they 
were faithful to their conscience, when they see by the 
result, not only in the case of Daniel, but of a countless 
multitude in our own day, that his course was not only 
wise, but right. 



THE KING'S DREAM, 

Daniel had been carried off to Babylon "in the third 
year of Jehoiakim," which was the second year before 
Nebuchadnezzar, from crown prince, became "the Great 
King," on the death of his father, ISTabopolassar. 

His physical training, to develop personal vigour, occu- 
pied years; and he had to pass through the various 
branches of "wisdom," "knowledge," and "science," com- 
prised in the " learning " of the Chaldeans. He had, 
first, to learn to read and write the living language of 
Assyria, with its endless combinations of wedge-shaped 
characters, like the hieroglyphs and ideographs of China 
for their puzzling complications, and also in the fact that 
different pronunciations gave entirely different meanings 
to the same character. But it was necessary that the 
student, preparing for a position among the literati of 
the court, should further master another language long 
dead, the Akkadian, which had been superseded by the 
" Chaldean," but was, still, that in which the great 
treatises on the gods, on " science," and on magic, the 
mastery of which was indispensable for a liberal educa- 
tion, were veiled from illiterate eyes. 

The greatest importance was attached, in antiquity, to 
the " visions " of the night, which were regarded as com- 
munications from the spirit-world, full of the gravest 
meaning when rightly interpreted. The annals of the 

408 



THE king's dream. 409 

Egyptian Pharaohs, as well as those of the Assyrian kings, 
show this no less vividly than the narratives of Scripture. 
But, in Nebuchadnezzar's case, anxiety to learn the 
gracious revelations of the gods was heightened, by the 
fact that he had forgotten the details of the dream, and 
might naturally fenr that his having done so might bring 
him evil, by offending the higher powers. A hasty 
summons, therefore, was issued by the king, that all the 
court interpreters of the intimations of the gods, should 
at once assemble, " to shew the king his dreams." 

Forthwith, the whole body, doubtless in the greatest 
excitement, gathered from their various colleges, and hur- 
ried to the audience- chamber, to hear the communication 
which their lord had to make to them. Presently, the 
grand curtains of the hall were drawn aside, and Nebuch- 
adnezzar, the king of kings, stood before them. " king, 
live for ever," rose from the splendid, many-voiced throng, 
as he appeared ; every one, as he spoke, sinking prostrate 
on the gorgeously carpeted floor, with his face touching 
it, till they were all permitted to rise. 

Then an awful surprise awaited them. " I have for- 
gotten my dream," said the king. " But," he continued, " if 
you do not tell it me, and also give me a true interpre- 
tation, you will be cut in pieces, and your houses made a 
dunghill. If, however, you tell it me, and explain it, you 
shall be richly rewarded and greatly honoured." The 
punishment threatened was thoroughly Babylonian, and, 
indeed, Sennacherib had carried it out on a whole city, 
after the great rebellion. The awful despotism of Oriental 
kings is almost beyond our conception. They were 
regarded as virtual gods, and their will was viewed as 
the will of the godhead. " The true Persian," says one. 



410 THE king's dream. 

rejoices to be allowed to kiss the hand of his ruler, even if 
it be stained with his child's blood. Cambyses has put 
my brother to death, but I murmur at him no more for 
it, than I did at the godhead who took my parents from 
me." 

" There is not a man on earth who can do what the 
king requireth," groaned out the head of the magi ; " nor 
is there any king, lord, or ruler, that asks such a thing as 
thou, king, demandest, because they know it cannot be 
done. Only the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh, 
can do what thou wishes t." But the despot, furious that 
his wildest whim could not be gratified, ordered that all 
the wise men in Babylonia should, forthwith, be killed, — 
the bodyguard being always the executioners of the king's 
wrath in the East, as we often see in the historical books 
of Scripture. 

The fate of Daniel and his companions as members of 
the magian caste seemed to be sealed; but he was able 
to temporise with the headsman, and get from him the 
reason of this sudden action on the part of Nebuch- 
adnezzar. Seeking an audience forthwith, he boldly told 
the king that, if time were given, he would solve the 
mystery and relieve the royal mind. This granted, he 
and his companions, we are told, betook themselves to 
earnest prayer, with the result that the secret was 
revealed to Daniel, in a dream, as he slept. 

Admitted to the presence, he bore himself nobly. The 
God of heaven, he said, had made the dream and its 
meaning known to him. The king had seen a great 
image, of shining brightness and terrible aspect; its 
head of fine gold, its arms and breast of silver ; thence, 
to its knees, of brass ; then, to its feet, of iron, the feet 



THE king's dream. 411 

themselves being partly iron and partly clay. As he gazed, 
however, wondering at the appearance, a stone was seen 
by him, cut out without hands, which smote in pieces the 
feet of the image ; and the whole of its huge bulk was 
thus brought down at one stroke ; the iron, the clay, the 
brass, the silver, and the gold being so pulverised by the 
crash, that all, alike, became mere dust in the wind, 
and was carried away by it, wholly disappearing. The 
mysterious stone, however, grew a vast mountain, and 
filled the whole earth. 

Tliis, said Daniel, was the dream ; he would now give 
the king its interpretation. He, himself, was the radiant 
head of gold. God had given him a kingdom, power, and 
strength, and glory, over all the earth. After him, there 
would rise a kingdom inferior to him ; then a third king- 
dom, of brass, which would bear rule over all the earth ; 
next, a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, breaking and 
subduing all things before it. It would, however, be 
erelong divided, one part remaining strong, the other soon 
showing weakness. Lastly, the God of heaven would set 
up a kingdom which should never be destroyed, but 
would break in pieces and destroy all these kingdoms, 
and itself stand for ever. 

Where there have been so many opinions respecting 
these kingdoms, it would be very foolish to assume an 
air of infallibility ; but it can do no harm to recall the 
different powers that succeeded one another in Western 
Asia, which was practically the limit of Hebrew thought 
and interest. The heir to the Chaldean world-kingdom 
was the Medo-Persian, which, however, was soon merged 
in the far grander, all-embracing sweep of the kingdom, 
of the Persians, — the third in the kino's vision. Next 



412 THE king's dream. 

appeared the amazing, irresistible, iron kingdom of Alex- 
ander of Macedon, " breaking in pieces, bruising, and 
subduing all things," as far, even, as dreamily remote 
India. But the early death of the wonderful genius who, 
in his glimpse of life, had wrought such miracles, brought 
with it the " dividing " of his vast dominions, — the Syrian 
Empire, whose rulers took their name from their capital, 
Antioch, seizing one part, and the Ptolemies, whose seat 
was at Alexandria, in Egypt, grasping the other. Of 
these, as the vision indicated, the one, Syria, was much 
stronger than the other, the Mle kingdom; but both 
were to be merged in a kingdom set up by the God of 
heaven, which should " consume " all other kingdoms, and 
itself stand for ever. 

To the average Jew, this fourth kingdom, the kingdom 
of God, would stand for the rule of his own people over 
all kingdoms and races of men. This, as we constantly 
see in the Gospels, was the assumption of the nation in 
our Lord's time, even His disciples clinging to it, in the 
face of what their Master said, of a more spiritual fulfil- 
ment of the prophecy. The literal interpretation, no 
doubt, exerted a great influence on their history. When 
he was crushed by the Syro-Greek tyranny, the hope of 
such a future would rouse the Jew to a heroic struggle 
with his oppressors, as being not more his enemies than 
they were the enemies of the kingdom of God. Thus 
may well have been generated the grand enthusiasm 
which burst out in the victorious revolt under the Macca- 
bees (B.C. 165). 



THE GOLDEN IMAGE, 

Daniel and his companions, after their elevation through 
the " wisdom " of Daniel, in the interpretation of the 
king's dream, seem to have enjoyed their honours in peace 
till the eighteenth, or, it may be, the twenty-eighth, year 
of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Meanwhile, Babylon 
had been transformed into one of the wonders of the 
world, by the great temples, palaces, and other public 
buildings, raised by the splendour-loving monarch, — the 
hanging-gardens he had created, and the amazing walls 
with which he had surrounded his metropolis. Amidst 
so much glory his heart swelled with pride, and he was 
heard boasting, " Is not this great Babylon, that I have 
built, for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my 
power, and for the honour of my majesty ? " Such a 
triumph, he thought, must be celebrated by a fitting 
acknowledgment to his god, who had crowned him with 
so much magnificence. He would erect to him a great 
image, covered with plates of gold, and rising, though 
seated, no less than ninety feet above the plain around. 
The uncovering of this mighty statue he would make the 
occasion of a grand festival, to be attended by all the 
dignitaries of the far-stretching empire. 

It was quite in keeping with the ideas of antiquity that 
a new image of one of the national gods should be thus 
inaugurated, and that homage should be paid to it, as the 

413 



414 THE GOLDEN IMAGE. 

symbol of a particular deity. Abont five miles south-east 
of the ruins of the great city, on a part of the vast sur- 
rounding plain, seamed with traces of ancient canals, one 
of which is still known as the Dura, dotted with old 
mounds, Oppert found one mound known as " the squared," 
the corners of which face the four cardinal points, and 
rise twenty feet above the level below ; each side, at the 
base, being almost exacty fifty-six feet long. On the top 
are four blocks of bricks, formerly parts of a united whole. 
The resemblance to the pedestal of a colossal statue is felt 
at once, and it would almost seem as if we had before us, 
in this platform, the site of the great image of which 
Daniel speaks. 

To secure the grandeur of the inauguration ceremonies, 
a vast service of running posts was organised, and hurried 
off to every part of the empire, bearing the royal summons, 
in obedience to which, the magnificent satraps, their 
scarcely less imposing deputies, the gorgeously robed 
lieutenant-governors who served under them, the generals 
of all the army corps, the chancellors of provinces, the 
greater and lesser judges, the swarming hosts of civil and 
criminal lawyers, the magistrates of all grades, and the 
heads of sacred colleges, — in short, all the splendour and 
dignity of the empire, — were speedily in motion along 
every road, with their innumerable attendants, towards 
the capital. At last the great day arrived. The boundless 
plain was covered, far and near, with such a throng as had 
never, perhaps, been seen even at Babylon; Nebuchad- 
nezzar, surrounded with his most glorious state, forming, 
no doubt, the central and overpowering sight of all. 

Among the glittering suite attending him were, 
necessarily, the high officials of the court and, as part of 



THE GOLDEN IMAGE. 415 

l,liis honoured and envied throng, rode the three companions 
of Daniel, as high dignitaries of the college of astrologers 
and " wise men," attached to the palace ; Daniel himself, 
strangely, not being mentioned as with them. In their 
bosoms alone the great spectacle of the day awoke no 
sympathy ; for, to them, the shining statue of Merodach, 
which others regarded as a god, was only an abomination, 
which they would not recognise as worthy of common 
respect, even should their refusal to hail it as divine cost 
them their lives. They had, no doubt, talked and prayed 
over the matter, and their clear resolve had been taken, 
to keep clear of any approach to idolatry. Among all the 
myriads round, they, alone, had any such scruples ; for 
was not Merodach proclaimed as, henceforth, the supreme 
god of Babylonia ? Of course the multitude eagerly 
accepted him as such ; for who were they, that they should 
dispute the voice of the Great King and of the sacred 
colleges ? 

But whatever others might think or do, was nothing to 
the friends of Daniel. They were bound to act according 
to their consciences. They were before Him to whom 
they must give account, and He was able to deliver them 
from the wrath of the king, for disobeying his command. 
The difficulty would have been less, had the refusal to 
worship the image been only a point of religious exactness. 
But in the eyes of that age it was far more ; for to reject 
the religion of the state was to refuse obedience to the 
constituted authorities, and commit an audacious act of 
high treason. 

But, now, gorgeous heralds rode out, and, after high 
flourishes of the trumpets, cried aloud that it was the 
king's command, that when the sacred choirs, gathered to 



416 THE GOLDEN IMAGE. 

this grand solemnity from the great temples of all the 
gods, should raise the anthem to the mighty Merodach, 
amidst the music of the innumerable instruments brought 
together to honour the day, all nations and languages in 
the multitudes, far and near, around the resplendent 
image, should fall down and worship it, on pain of being 
cast, that same hour, in case of refusal, into the midst of a 
burning fiery furnace. Forthwith, when the mighty 
strains arose, the vast sea of human beings bent, like a 
great wave, to the earth, the king at their head, and paid 
homage to the shining god. 

It' was noticed, however, that, amidst the worshippers, 
there were three figures, in the very neighbourhood of the 
king, who had remained erect, and had thus treated the 
royal command with disrespect. Who could they be ? 
The keen ill-will of the " Chaldeans," whom the Hebrews 
had supplanted as chiefs of the royal magi, soon found 
out. They were their hated rivals. A word to the king 
would now free them for ever from them. Some of the 
offended caste lost no time, therefore, in turning informers, 
and bringing the audacious and insulting action of the 
three recusants before Nebuchadnezzar. 

That any one should have dared to disobey him seemed 
incredible ; but it was, if possible, still worse to affront 
his god. Breaking into a paroxysm of rage, wild and 
incontrollable, he ordered the criminals to be brought 
before him instantly. " Would they bow down and 
worship the image, or not ? " But their answer was ready. 
" We have no need," said they, " to answer thee, king, 
in this matter. If our God whom we serve, is able to 
deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, 
and out of thine hand, king. But if not, be it known 



THE GOLDEN IMAGE. 417 

unto thee, king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor 
worship the golden image which thou hast set up." 
Nothing like this had ever been heard in Babylonia. The 
most slavish, unlimited obedience to every least word of 
the king, was imperative on all, and rendered without a 
dream of hesitation. For was not the great king as one 
of the gods ? And who would think of having a will 
other than his ? 

The whole being of the despot was turned to fury. He 
had been defied for the first time in his life ; for the first 
time in his life, his pleasure had not been at once accepted 
as sacred law. There were great furnaces always burning 
in Babylon, to consume the corpses of the dead; one 
of these was to be heated seven times more than usual, 
or, rath , seven times more than was necessary, for its 
ordinary repulsive work, and into this the three offenders 
were to be cast ; the strongest men in the king's guard 
being ordered to see the command carried out, as alone 
able to stand the terrible heat. The brave confessors had 
no time given them for preparation. There and then they 
were bound, as they stood, in their mantles, their hose, 
and their cloaks, and other garments, and thrown down, 
from above, into the awful sea of flame, the fierce tongues 
of which, leaping up, fatally burned the executioners. 
Meanwhile, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, though 
they had fallen bound into the roaring fires, to the amaze- 
ment of all, were presently seen with their bonds loose, 
walking about, unhurt, in the midst of the fire. Still 
more, it was seen that a fourth form was with them, whom 
the " counsellors " sent to report, declared to be a " son of 
the gods," as if they fancied that the god of fire himself 

had come to protect them. 

2d 



418 THE GOLDEN IMAGE. 

Such an amazing incident speedily reached the ears of 
the king, and brought him, in wondering excitement, to 
the spot. It was actually true. There was one portion 
in his empire, and that so near, in which his power was 
met and overthrown by a greater. Within the circle of 
the furnace into which he was now gazing, awestruck, 
another authority than his prevailed. Summoning them 
forth from their flaming prison, lest he might harm him- 
self rather than them, since they clearly had a god as 
their helper, he could do no less than extol a Being who 
thus stood by His servants, and issue a decree that the God 
of these men should be recognised as divine in Babylonia. 
Promotion of the three noble confessors of their faith 
naturally followed j and, thus, out of the most awful 
danger came, to the faithful ones, not only well- won peace * 
of soul, but earthly reward also, for their grand loyalty to 
the Eternal. 



THE DEN OF LIONS. 

Daniel had been carried to Babylon, in b.c. 606, a rising 
youth. Since then, Nebuchadnezzar had reigned forty- 
five years, dying in 561. He had virtually created the 
Babylonian Empire, and he left it, at his death, an inheri- 
tance of unimaginable grandeur, stretching out, in the 
unclouded sunshine of universal peace, OA-er vast realms, 
peopled by many widely different nations. It seemed as 
if Babylon would sit as queen over the habitable world 
through untold generations ; and yet, in twenty-three 
years from the death of N"ebuchadnezzar, the assaulting 
columns of Cyrus, then acting as commander-in-chief of 
Darius the Mede, marched in through the treacherously 
opened gates of the mighty city, and the sceptre passed 
into the hands of the conqueror. 

Darius, a man of sixty-two, when Cyrus gained for him 
the throne of N'ebuchadnezzar, was, however, little more 
than a phantom king ; for he died childless, after two 
years, leaving the crown, with an undisputed succession, 
to Cyrus, who had not seized it before his death, to pre- 
vent the opposition of the Median army, till then the 
nominal head of the war. There is no mention of this 
Darius in ancient writers ; and hence it has been urojed, 
that he could only have been named, by mistake, for 
Darius Hystaspis, who reigned nearly twenty years later. 

419 



420 THE DEN OF LIONS. 

But we have simply to remember how the name of the 
great Assyrian king Sargon, who took Samaria, was known 
to us, till very recently, merely by one line in Isaiah,^ and 
was hence fancied to be a historical slip of the prophet, 
and yet has been found, since the Mneveh mounds have 
been opened, to belong to one of the greatest monarchs 
of antiquity. How easily may the brief reign of Darius 
the Mede have similarly disappeared, at least for a time, 
so few notices of his age having survived. 

Through all the interval from the days of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Daniel had lived in Babylonia, and now, at the 
change of dynasty, was an old man of eighty, if not more. 
His fame, as the mouthpiece of the higher powers, must 
have been soon known to Darius ; so that it is only what 
might have been expected when we read, that, on the 
division of the empire into a hundred and twenty 
provinces, by the new king, the prophet was appointed 
one of three sarekin, or presidents, to whom the superin- 
tendence of these was committed. It was inevitable, 
however, that the elevation of a foreigner, of a conquered 
race, to so high an honour, should rouse the jealousy 
of the native ruling class, and lead to a plot for his 
destruction. Intrigues and conspiracies have, in all ages, 
been part of the public and private life of the East, and 
in this case a ready pretext offered itself, in Daniel's 
disregard of the local gods. The priests and the laity 
alike, would applaud the overthrow of an enemy of 
Merodach or BeL It was certain, moreover, that the 
prophet would refuse to allow any interference with 
his religion ; so that, if his rivals could get the king to 
issue an order, obedience to which would require Daniel 

1 Isa, XX. 1. 



THE DEN OF LIONS. 421 

to be disloyal to Jehovah, they might be sure they would 
be able to compromise him with Darius. 

The snare was erelong skilfully woven out and laid. 
From the remotest ages, the kings of Babylon, like other 
kings of antiquity, generally, had claimed to be " sons of 
the great gods : " and it was, therefore, easy to obtain a 
decree from Darius, that all his subjects should be 
required to pray, for a month, to no other god but him- 
self. Once signe(^ their prey was safe ; for the insane 
pride of the Medo-Persian kings would not allow their 
cancelling any word they had made law, since their 
doing so would be an insinuation that, though divine, 
they might err, — a thought not to be tolerated for a 
moment. 

Daniel, meanwhile, treated their scheme with perfect 
indifference. He knew that the God he served, who had 
delivered him from the greatest dangers in the past, was 
able to open a way to safety, for him, through his present 
perils. When, therefore, he heard that the decree had 
been signed, it made no change in his religious life. 
Going into his house as usual, at the hours of prayer, 
which in his case was three times a day, he flung open 
his window casements, as was his wont, and, " kneeling 
down upon his knees, prayed, and gave thanks before 
his God, as he did aforetime," with his face toward 
Jerusalem, the seat of the temple, where Jehovah had, of 
old, been peculiarly present, — an attitude still observed 
by all Jews over the world ; as all Mahommedans, in the 
same way, turn their face, in prayer, towards Mecca. In 
every synagogue, and in every mosque, moreover, there is 
always a mark in the wall showing the direction of the 
holy place. 



422 THE DEX OF LTOXS. 

r 

It was enough. Daniel had disobeyed the decree, and 
it stood unalterably written, that any one who dared to 
do so, should, forthwith, be cast "into the den of lions." 
This was a punishment often used by the despots of 
Western Asia. Lions had, in former times, abounded in 
Mesopotamia ; for the old kings of Egypt, sixteen hundred 
years before Christ, have left records of their prowess in 
hunting them, in the regions bordering the Euphrates. 
In the later times of Darius, however, it would appear 
that numbers were kept in dens, in the palace grounds, 
ready to be turned out, when the great king was pleased 
to wish the excitement of the chase. 

Darius now, for the first time, saw how he had been 
overreached ; but there was no human help for the victim 
of the plot. The grief of the king was deep and sin- 
cere, nor was he without hope, that a servant whom he 
honoured should, after all, pass through the awful ordeal 
safely. " Thy God whom thou servest continually," said 
he, to the grand Hebrew, '' He will deliver thee." Such 
words must have sounded ominously to the accusers ; but 
they in their turn had no alternative but to carry out the 
king's written decree. They doubtless began to fear they 
had been too clever for their own good ; for, if the king's 
words proved true, and Daniel was really delivered from 
the lions by his God, Darius would certainly turn against 
them, and make them endure all they had contrived for 
the Hebrew. 

It is not easy to understand what the "den" could 
have been. The word used for it is that used for a sub- 
terranean cistern, from the smooth sides and bottle-like 
top of which a wild beast could not escape, while a single 
large stone would suffice to seal the narrow mouth of it. 



THE DEN OF LIOXS. 423 

It must, however, have been of great size, for it held 
quite a crowd of victims, as we shall see, thrown into it 
the next day. Perhaps it was like a great underground 
reservoir I saw at Constantinople, dry ever since the 
Turks came, four hundred years ago, and now utilised, in 
a rough way, as a yarn- walk, by men who led out their 
woollen lines over the bottom, in spite of the mounds of 
rubbish that had lain all over it for centuries. Jeremiah 
tells of a " pit " large enough to hold the bodies of seventy 
men.^ We have no description of the " dens " in which 
Oriental kings kept their wild animals, but a traveller in 
Morocco gives an account of one belonging to the sultan, 
which consisted of a square, underground pit, divided 
into two parts by a wall, in which was a door that could 
be opened and shut from above. Into each of these, in 
turn, the food of the beasts was thrown, the door being 
shut down behind them when they went after it; the 
half they left free being thus at the disposal of the 
keepers for cleaning. The " den " was open above, but 
bordered by a wall, over which one could look down at 
the monsters. Whatever the othet arrangements, the 
mouth of the Persian " pit," by which, alone, escape was 
possible, was closed by a great stone, on which the im- 
pression of the signet-ring of Darius, and of the rings 
of his lords, was stamped, that there might be no change 
of purpose as to the fated prophet. 

It was a dismal night for the king. Eegret at his 
having let himself be tricked to destroy his best servant, 
indignation at those who had befooled him under pretext 
of zeal for the gods, and a faint hope that Daniel, in some 
mysterious way, might be delivered, drove sleep from him. 

1 Jer. xli. 7, 9. 



424 THE DEN OF LIONS. 

But his fears proved iinneeded, for, on rising at early 
morning, Daniel was found alive and unhurt ! That he 
was at once drawn up and restored to favour, and that his 
accusers were hurled to destruction in his stead, was the 
natural close of the amazing incident. 



A 



THE PATRIARCH yOB. 

The Book of Job differs, in many of its characteristic 
features, from all the other books of Scripture. Neither 
the hero nor the subordinate personages introduced are 
Jews ; and the scene of the incidents lies outside Pales- 
tine. The form of worship described in it is Gentile, not 
Jewish ; for no mention of priests is made, and the father 
of the household offers the family sacrifices ; nor is there 
in it, from beginning to end, any allusion to Jewish 
history or Jewish institutions. There is, moreover, an 
atmosphere of wide humanity in its treatment and spirit, 
unknown to the Jew ; and there are frequent allusions 
to countries outside Palestine, — to the mining region of 
Sinai, for example, and to the exterminating wars of 
ancient Edom on the aboriginal Horites, and the varied 
wonders of the valley of the Mle. Its God is not distinc- 
tively the God of Israel; it knows nothing of a chosen 
people, and has no airs of superiority towards non-Jewish 
races. 

Critics have discussed its age with wonderful acumen, 
examining its peculiarities of language, and every detail 
of its style and contents, with the result that, now, its 
date, with much confidence, is assigned to some period 
between the seventh and the fifth centuries before Christ; 
that is, between the time of Manasseh and ISTehemiah. 
The story was probably an old-world tradition of thci 

425 



426 THE PATRIARCH JOB, 

East, and had been handed down, through many genera- 
tions, before it was utiUsed by the author of the book, 
to enforce great lessons, on the moral government of the 
world by God. The Jews, I may say, speak of it as a 
mere poem. " Job did not exist," says the Talmud ; " he 
was not a man, but a parable." It is not, however, neces- 
sary to think this, and Scripture appears to treat him as 
a real person. He is painted as one recognised by all as 
a man of exceptional excellence, and, at the same time, 
as widely famous for his wealth and worldly prosperity. 
With all this, his unaffected piety was universally acknow- 
ledged. " There was none like him upon earth, — a perfect 
and upright man, who feared God, and eschewed evil." 

According to notions current among the Jews, the tem- 
poral good fortune of such a man was secure; but by 
thoughtful minds this had been felt to be contrary to 
experience. Job is, therefore, described in the book that 
bears his name as visited with every form of trouble, in 
spite of all his godliness ; and the principle is urged, 
which received its final endorsement by our Saviour, when 
He asked if the men on whom the tower in Siloam fell 
were greater sinners than other men, or the Galileans 
slain by Pilate, when they were sacrificing at the temple, 
greater sinners than other Galileans, — questions which 
Christ answered in the strongest negative. This life. He 
in effect taught, is not a system of final rewards and 
punishments. Here we are disciplined, not paid for our 
merits, or scourged for our faults. 

No doubt, a second moral is conveyed by the story, in 
its illustration of the characteristics of a heart loyal to 
God, when most severely tempted to lose its faith in Him. 
Through all despair and perplexity, the patriarch looks to 



THE PATRIAKCH JOB. 427 

God as his hope and trust, till, at last, the clouds finally 
break, and he rejoices in the full justification of his con- 
stancy. Tempted by his wife to turn away from God, he 
rejects the thought. 

Stripped of children and possessions, and even smitten 
by a loathsome disease, he is no longer fit to associate 
with men, and takes his seat outside the town, on the 
great dust-heap, which rises, like a small hill, at the gates 
of all Eastern villages. It is the haunt of the beggars and 
homeless of the community ; the heat of the fermenting 
mass giving a sordid comfort through the cold nights. 
Here he is visited by three friends, who did not know 
him when they came, so utterly was everything changed. 
Weeping, rending their mantles, and sprinkling dust on 
their heads, toward heaven, they sit down, in silent grief, 
beside him. For seven days and nights they never speak 
a word to intrude on so great misery. 

Then Eliphaz, the eldest and most weighty of his 
visitors, begins a discourse intended to show that all men 
are sinful, and that suffering is due to this, but may be 
removed by sincere repentance. He does not directly 
accuse the poor sufferer, but recalls the bitterness of the 
troubles that have overtaken him, and leaves him to say 
for himself, from what cause they could have been sent. 
Then, to soften the blow, he introduces, through the 
medium of a vision granted on some occasion to him, the 
universality of sin, which is found, he declares, not only 
in man, but even in higher orders of being. The burden 
of his address will be more readily caught from the fol- 
lowing paraphrase of the fourth and fifth chapters, for 
which I am indebted to a distinguished living writer, and 
which runs thus : — 



428 THE PATRIARCH JOB. 

"My conscience compels me to say something to you. 
Might I venture to speak without your being vexed ? 
How is it that you, who have so often comforted the dis- 
tressed, are dismayed as soon as calamity comes upon 
yourself ? Instead of despairing, you should remember 
that the innocent never perish. It is only the wicked 
who are consumed. . » . You need not be ashamed to 
own your sin, for all of us are sinners. This was revealed 
to me once in a vision. In the darkness of the night, 
when deep sleep falls upon men, a fear came upon me 
and trembling, a wind swept over my face, and there 
stood before me a Presence, whose form I could not dis- 
cern. It spoke in a clear soft voice, and asked, ' Shall 
mortal man, who is sooner crushed than the moth, be 
pure in the sight of God his Maker, who chargeth even 
the angels with folly? It cannot be.' Ask any of 
the holy ones themselves, and they will confirm my 
doctrine. ... 

" I have watched the wicked, and always found it ill 
with them. Their property is enjoyed by robbers. Their 
children ruin themselves with lawsuits. They themselves 
pass away prematurely. But this suffering is no accident. 
It is the punishment of sin. And, since all men are 
sinners, suffering must come, more or less, to all. Man 
is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Your grief 
is but an extreme illustration of the common rule. . . . 

" Were I in your place, I would have recourse to God. 
Forgiveness and happiness may seem more than you can 
hope for; but God is always doing great things, past 
finding out. He is continually exalting those that are 
cast down. Happy is the man whom God correcteth. 
Despise not His chastening. It is for your good. His 



THE PATRIARCH JOB. 429 

purpose is to make you reflect. God only bruises that 
He may heal. Eeturn to Him, and your prosperity will 
be restored, — nay, increased. In famine He will sustain 
you. In war He will protect you. You will laugh at all 
forms of danger. Wild beasts will never hurt you. Even 
the stones of the field will be in league with you, and, 
instead of obstructing your crops, will give them a more 
luxuriant growth. Your children will be multiplied as 
the very grass of the land. You shall go down to the 
tomb in a ripe old age, like a shock of corn fully ripe. 
This, Job, is my experience. Hear it, and learn it, for 
your good." 

Eliphaz illustrates the impossibility of those entering 
into the deep sorrows of others, who have not themselves 
passed through similar trials. The heart, says Luther, is 
the best theologian. The doctrine of the speaker was 
excellent in its way, and delicately put, but sympathy 
alone could abate the agony of Job's bosom, and that 
Eliphaz could not fully give. We are made perfect by 
suffering, not only in our spiritual life, but in our capa- 
city to succour those over whom the billows of suffering 
are at the moment breaking. 



yOB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

When Eliphaz had ended his appeal to Job, the poor suf- 
ferer broke his silence, and began a formal reply, wliich 
extends through the sixth and seventh chapters. He had 
been sorely vexed, he said ; but his vexation had been as 
nothing compared to his calamity, which was heavier 
than the sands of the sea. The poisoned arrows of God 
were drinking up his life. But he had reason for his 
grief, for not even a beast cries out without cause. To 
tell him of death as awaiting him if he did not repent, 
was idle, for he longed for it above all things. Then he 
would have comfort, for he had never disobeyed the 
words of the Holy One. To talk of a happy future if he 
coufessed, was vain. He had not the strength of stones 
and brass ; his life was broken. 

Even the support he might justly claim from his 
friends was withheld. They had been like winter-torrents 
which run deep when not needed, but have dry beds 
in the time of heat. He had asked nothing, but looked 
assuredly for sympathy. Let them show him, in plain 
words, what he had done wrong. They accused him, but 
gave no proof of their charges. As to his passionate 
words, no one could lay stress on them ; for words were 
but wind, and despair like his could not restrain its cries. 

In spite of them, he asserted his innocence. He knew 
right from wrong, and spoke thus from his heart. They 

430 



JOB AND HIS FKIENDS. 431 

had painted God as a Father, but his experience was 
bitter. Like a slave under a taskmaster, panting for the 
night, man longed for death to end his misery. His ov/n 
life was now unendurable in its wretchedness, and was 
hastening swiftly to its close, when he would pass into 
nothingness, like a cloud before the sun. Why should 
God torture so feeble a creature thus ? Why should He 
keep watch over him every moment, to try him with 
fresh plagues ? Grant that he had sinned ; what harm 
could he do to God ? Why cannot so great a Being 
pardon so frail a worm, who is so soon to mingle with 
the dust? 

Bildad now begins, bluntly enough, with harsh reproof. 
When would Job give up his storm of angry words ? 
Was God ever unjust ? Would He have killed Job's 
children if they had not been sinners ? They must have 
perished for their wickedness. As for Job himself, peni- 
tence would bring back prosperity. The fathers had 
rightly held that a hypocrite can no more prosper than 
a rush can grow without water. His ground of hope is 
frail as a spider's web. But if he turned to God, his 
sorrow would be changed to joy. 

In chapters ix. and x., Job speaks again. Admitting 
the omnipotence of God and the hopelessness of contend- 
•ing with Him, he yet asserts that innocence makes no 
difference in the fate of men. God destroys alike the 
perfect and the wicked. He, himself, is assumed by his 
friends to be guilty, but he is not. Yet it would only 
make things worse if he tried to reason with the Almighty. 
He does not care whether he lives or dies. He will speak 
out, and ask God why He thus contends with him. Is 
it right to oppress the weak and to favour the wicked ? 



432 JOB AND HIS FEIENDS. 

Innocence and sin are treated alike. Would he had never 
been born! Oh that God would let him alone, that he 
may have a little peace before he goes to the land from 
which there is no return, — the land of thick darkness ! 

Zophar now comes forward, simply repeating, that 
prosperity or suffering are meted out exactly in propor- 
tion to a man's innocence or sin. Job replies by a 
lengthened exaltation of the awful power of God, but he 
shows how far, in his opinion, the divine government is 
from being strictly retributive ; that, in fact, it is either 
capricious and arbitrary, or beyond our comprehension. 
He will demand a formal trial, and claims to know of 
what he is accused. Eeceiving no answer, he sinks into 
his formal sadness. Yet, for a moment, he has the dim 
hope of a future life, but presently passes to his old 
despair, and sees in death only the .end of conscious 
existence. 

Eliphaz now, again, ^ appears, — only, however, to repeat 
his former doctrine of exact rewards and punishments in 
this life. Job hardly deigns to reply, but turns to God 
in mingled complaint and entreaty, illuminated by gleams 
of hope. Yet he closes by haihng death as his one great 
desire. Bildad then reappears, urging the orthodox idea 
of the time once more, with keen minuteness of home 
thrusts at the sufferer. Yes, punishment of sin is the 
explanation of all we endure in this life. 

But Job will not admit that it is so. His miseries, he 
persists, are not a punishment for sin, though he does not 
pretend to know, how their infliction can be reconciled 
with the justice of the Almighty. Can his friends not 
show pity on him, and mitigate his wretchedness by a 

^ Job XV. 



JOB AND HIS FRIENDS. 433 

little human tenderness ? But they remain silent, afraid 
to be sympathetic, lest it should appear as if they con- 
doned his supposed heterodoxy. Deserted thus, his 
misery sinks still more deeply into his heart. It was 
clear that no light, to cheer his deep gloom, could be 
expected from any earthly source. Was it possible that, 
after all, the balance of his destiny would be restored 
hereafter, by a future life ? Till now he had regarded 
death as the close of man's being ; but how could it be 
so, since in no other way, apparently, than by the redress- 
ing of his miseries in a life to come, could the justice of 
God be vindicated ? 

Sitting on the dust-heap in unspeakable sorrow, he sees 
his friends wrapped in soothing self-complacency at their 
own prosperity : the proof that they were so much better 
than he, as nob to have needed the infliction of his suffer- 
ings. Yet he feels that their lives, certainly, had not 
been better than his own. How could this be explained, 
unless there were a future life, in which that which was 
so mysterious now would be vindicated, and the justice 
of the Eternal be made clear ? From this time his faith 
in immortality is fixed. " I should wish/' says he, " that 
what I am about to speak were graven on the rocks, that 
it might be read for ever. I know that there lives for 
me an Avenger, and that, by and by, He will stand over 
my grave, and pronounce my cause just. My body will 
be destroyed, but, without it, I shall see God. Yes, I 
myself shall see Him. As for you, friends ! if you 
persist in persecuting me, beware of the sword of my 
Avenger, my Vindicator." 

Zophar now takes up the discourse, hurling still more 
bitter reproaches upon Job for his obstinate heterodoxy. 



AJ EJ 



434 JOB AND Ills FEIENDS. 

But the patriarch stubbornly maintains that he is inno- 
cent, and cKngs to his faith in a future vindication, more 
tenaciously tlian ever. He will live beyond the grave, 
and there all will be put right. 

Eliphaz once more retorts fiercely. But it is of no use. 
Job holds fast to his trust in the final justification of 
the divine ways, in the life beyond. " Even to-day," says 
he, " after all your hard speeches, I persist in my com- 
plaint ; yet, bitterly though I groan, it does not express 
the depth of my grief. Oh that I knew where I might 
find God ! I would go even to His throne, and lay my 
cause before Him, and advance argument on argument, 
that I might hear what He should say in reply. Then, 
at last, I should understand what He has to urge against 
me. I am not afraid of His using His great power to put 
me down. N'o ; let Him but Himself attend to my case, 
and not confuse it with your blind talk. Then would 
there be a righteous man disputing with Him, and I 
should be delivered for ever by my Judge, and fully ac- 
quitted. The trouble is, I know not where to find Him. 
If I go east, He is not there ; if I go west, I cannot per- 
ceive Him ; if I go to the north, where He is working, I 
cannot behold Him; if I go south, He hides Himself, so 
that I cannot see Him. But He knows my life. My foot 
has walked in His ways. I have kept to them, and not 
turned aside. I have obeyed His commands. I have set 
His will before my own. When He does put me to trial, 
I shall come forth as gold. Meanwhile His purpose must 
be carried out. I must wait His time. What He wills. 
He always performs. The thought of this overcomes me, 
but I trust in Him, and the end will declare my innocence 
and vindicate all His ways." 



yOB'S REPLY. 

Strong in his integrity, yet unchanged in his loyal con- 
viction that God must be just, in spite of all appearances 
to the contrary, Job, after maintaining his belief that he 
would be cleared by the Eternal, if he could secure a trial 
before Him, continues the illustration of his contention, 
that wickedness is far from always meeting due punish- 
ment in this world,-*- He wonders why the ways of 
Providence are not justified to faithful souls, by their 
being allowed to see their vindication. Why does God 
not fix days on which His judgments are publicly dis- 
closed ? For undoubtedly wickedness does, apparently, 
go unpunished in many cases. The poor, and even the 
widow, are plundered. They are so stripped, indeed, that 
they have to flee to the desert, to live on roots and the 
like, as if they were beasts. Or they are kept as slaves, 
without even clothes being given them to cover them from 
the storm. Murderers and robbers flourish. Their name 
and heritage may suffer after their death, but during life 
they are " exalted." 

All this cannot be denied, and hence Bildad, who next 
speaks, no longer assails Job with accusations, but con- 
tents himself with repeating that the distance between 
God and man involves impurity in all, so that Job is 
wrong in expecting or claiming acquittal. Job, in reply, 

1 Job xxiv. 
435 



436 job's reply. 

while maintaining his integrity, freely assents to all that 
has been said of the majesty of God, but adds that, after 
all, we see but " the outskirts " of His ways. "We catch a 
whisper of His plans, but the thunder of His power, in its 
full sway, is overwhelming, and beyond our faculties to 
understand.^ 

From the twenty-seventh to the thirty-first chapters 
the suffering patriarch continues to soliloquise on the 
whole question at issue, as if unconscious of the presence 
of his friends. He admits that he has stated his belief 
in the good fortune of the wicked too broadly. On 
reflection, he must admit that the wicked are punished 
in many cases. But this leaves the mystery of his own 
case unsolved; for he is not wicked, and yet has been 
sorely stricken. His friends, in fact, had been trying to 
explain the inexplicable, ^or should this seem strange ; 
for man has only limited faculties, and much, even in the 
world around, is beyond his comprehension. Nothing, for 
example, is more astonishing, Job thinks, than the way in 
which the precious metals are brought from the depths of 
the hills by the miner,^ and yet how little of the secrets 
of nature is made known even in such triumphs as this ! 
Though we can thus pluck their secret from the bosom of 
the mountains, a glance at nature will show how utterly 
" past finding out " are " the ways of God." 

He now^ breaks off wearisome argument, to indulge 
in pensive retrospect. His thoughts go back to his 
prosperous past. The friendship of God, in those days 
of his "ripeness," watched over his tent, and his 
children were about him. He lived outside a well- 
ordered city, but not far from it. When he went, out of 

^ Job xxvi. 2 Job xxviii. ^ Job xxix. 



job's reply. 437 

his encampment-gate, to the town, and sat down in the 
open space before it, where the citizens gathered for 
business or gossip, he was treated with the most touching 
respect by all, from the youngest to the oldest, and from 
the poorest to the highest. He was, moreover, a judge 
sitting at the gate, and had earned the blessing of every 
class by his fearless punishment of the oppressor, how- 
ever strong, and the vindication of the weak. Eich, and 
yet nobly upright and liberal, he dwelt " as a king " in 
his home. 

But, now, the lowest affected to despise him. Even 
the sons of the tribes, dispossessed by his stronger race, 
and driven to the wilderness, to feed on salt-wort and 
broom-roots, and to live in caves and holes of the 
rocks, — wretched beings who had been scourged out of 
the land, — made him their song and byword, and even 
insulted him by spitting in his face. They were glad to 
repay on the sheik of their conquerors some of their 
cherished hatred. Nor was this all. His disease made 
life a burden. 

Yet what had his life been ? Did he not weep for any 
in trouble ? Was he not grieved for the poor ? He was 
chaste even in the indulgence of his eyes ; he was never 
guilty of any impurity ; the cause of any, even of his 
slaves, man or woman, was treated with absolute integrity ; 
he had fed the hungry and clothed the naked ; he had 
never made money his passion ; he had never denied God 
by worshipping the sun or moon, as those round him did ; 
he had never injured his enemy or rejoiced at his 
calamity ; though cursing a foe was so universal in the 
land, he had never done so ; his house had always been 

1 Job XXX, 



438 job's reply. 

open to the wayfarer ; he had not even cherished sinful 
thoughts, in lack of power to vent his anger at the 
threatened vengeance of unfortunates who had suffered 
at his hand. Yet here was he, weighed down by troubles 
beyond any man. 

The long speech of Elihu, which extends from the 
thirty-second to the thirty-eighth chapter, is regarded by 
some of the critics as an interpolation of a later period. 
Without giving an opinion on this, we may pass it over 
as only an interruption to the flow of the narrative. 

Meanwhile, Job has lost the passionate intensity of his 
earlier frame of mind. He has come to the conviction 
that there is a life beyond this, and hence feels that, at 
least after death, all will be explained. Still, it is hard 
to suffer in the present world, when conscious that one 
has striven to serve and honour God. Like all the men 
of his day, he can think of suffering only as punishment, 
and would fain know why it fell on him, of all people, 
so heavily. Would that God Himself would explain the 
mystery ! He has, at least, forgotten him. There can 
hardly be injustice or cruelty in the Eternal; yet how 
are things to be viewed, so that He may be finally cleared 
from even the subdued thought, of being the Author of 
unfairness ? 

But now, by a grand conception, God is introduced as 
listenmg to His servant's cry, and deigning to address 
him from the midst of a wild tempest ; the fit approach of 
Him whose "way is in the whirlwind and the storm.'* 
The awful words sound nearly as follows : " Who is this 
that adds confusion to his high theme by foolish words ? 
Thou hast asked to meet Me ; prepare to do so. Where 
wast thou when I founded the earth ? Say, if thou 



job's reply. 439 

knowest. Who measured out its parts ? On what does 
it rest ? Who laid its cornerstone, when the other races 
of the universe shouted for joy ? Who shut up the sea 
in its appointed bounds, making clouds its veil, and 
mists the swaddling-bands of its infancy ? Hast thou 
ever controlled the rising of the day, — that supreme 
wonder of nature ? Hast thou found out the secret 
fountain of the ocean, or explored the abyss of its depths ? 
Have the gates of the pale kingdoms of the dead been 
opened to thee ? Hast thou explored the wide breadth 
of the earth ? Where does light dwell, and where dark- 
ness ? Hast thou entered the storehouse of the snow or 
of the hail ? How are the light and the winds sent on 
their missions ? Who sends out the rainstorm, and 
makes a path for the lightning ? Do you know the 
father of the rain, or of the dew-drops ? or the mother 
of the ice and hoarfrost ? Canst thou bind into their 
places the seven stars, or loosen Orion's belt ? or make 
the constellations appear in their season ? or guide the 
Bear and her sons ? 

" Turn now to the creatures of the earth. Canst thou 
find prey for the lion ? or provide food for the young 
ravens ? or tell all about the wild goat ? Who made the 
wild ass so untamable in his wilderness ? Can you 
make a docile slave of the wild ox ? Why is the stork 
so kind to its young, and the ostrich so careless of hers ? 
Dost thou give its strength to the horse ? Hast thou 
clothed him with his quivering mane ? . . . Did your 
cleverness teach the hawk to fly south in winter, or 
the eagle to build on the lofty crags ? " But now the 
Almighty is represented as stopping to ask if Job, who 
has reproved Him, still wishes to contend with Him. 



440 job's reply. 

But the patriarch is not yet silenced ; he tells God he 
is too Nveak to answer. He will say no more. He is 
passive, however, rather than satisfied. Once more, 
therefore, Jehovah speaks. Job is asked to put himself 
on a level with Him by exhibiting the same powers. Men 
catch and hold the mighty hippopotamus, because He has 
ordained that it should be so. But they can do nothing 
with the crocodile, because a diiferent natiu-e has been 
given him. " And, this being so, wilt thou stand up 
against me. His maker, to whom all that is under the 
whole heaven belongs ? " 

Now, at last, Job is meekly submissive. " I know," 
says he, " that Thou canst do all things, and that nothing 
is too hard for Thee. Thou saidst, ' Who is this that is 
darkening the divine counsels with foolish words ? ' I 
confess that I have spoken of things I did not under- 
stand. I had only heard of Thee, when I rashly pro- 
posed to put Thee to the question; but now that my eyes 
see Thee I retract my audacity, and repent in dust and 
ashes." He does not admit any want of integrity. Be- 
tween himself and his fellow-man, he could still claim to 
be more righteous than they. But he now realised, in a 
measure, that, though free from blame towards men, he 
could not dare to take the same position towards God. 
For God was not only wiser, but holier, than any of His 
creatures ; and it was nobler and better to trust Him, in 
even the sorest difficulties, than to look to our own human 
reason for a solution. 

The end of the narrative does not require lengthened 
notice. The loyalty that stood true to God amidst all 
doubts was acknowledged by him, and the night of sorrow 
passed into the brightness of a morning without clouds; 



job's keply. 441 

Job's prosperity in his old age justifying him in his stead- 
fast assurance, that we cannot judge of God's heart by 
His hand, and that the sufferings of men in this life are 
no measure of their goodness or the reverse. Christ's 
doctrine, illustrated by His reference to those killed by 
the tower at Siloam, was, in fact, anticipated by the 
lesson of the narrative of the sufferer. 



SELECTIONS PROM THE PSALMS. 

THE FIRST PSALM. 

The First Psalm, over which no name of an author is 
inscribed, stands most fitly in the place it holds, as a 
brief preface or introduction to the great collection of 
hymns of the ancient Church, known to us as the Psalter. 
'No one can tell to whom we are indebted for it. The 
sweet song remains with us ; but the singer, like so many 
others to whom the world is debtor, has left no trace 
of his name or story. Even the age in which he lived 
is conjectural ; for while some fancy him to have played 
his part in the great days of the Maccabees, in the 
second century before Christ, others think he may have 
lived in the last age of the kingdom of Judah, before 
Jeremiah's time, or even in some earlier period, after 
that of Solomon. 

It matters nothing, however, when or by whom these 
sweet verses were written ; they are an everlasting joy 
to all humble souls striving towards the heavens, through 
many slips and frequent stumblings, in the darkness 
of temptation, doubt, and depression. 

In verse 1 the word " blessed " has, as its fundamental 
idea, the going straight forward, without stop or falling, 
than which no conception of happiness could be more 

412 



THE FIRST PSALM. 44 o 

perfect. The root-verb is translated in Proverbs (xxiii. 19) 
"guide thine heart," and in Isaiah (iii. 12) "they who 
lead thee;" (ix. 16) "the leaders" and ("they that are) 
led of them." Crooked paths are a fitting symbol of 
misfortune ; a straight path is a fine emblem of peace 
and joy. " Counsel " is rendered elsewhere, (1 Chronicles 
xii. 19), "advisement;" (2 Chronicles x.) "advice;" 
(Ezra iv. 5) " purpose ; " thus pointing to a person who 
has made himself one with unworthy company, follows 
their ideas, and lives their life. 

" The wicked," in the first meaning of the word, are 
those who cause disturbance, in their fancied enjoyments, 
or in their brawls, and wrong-doing, in contrast to the 
quiet and gentleness of good men; but, with this, all 
forms of evil are included. It is hence, in different 
texts, used for violence, impiety, the getting money 
otherwise than uprightly, and the using unjust balances. 
It implies, in fact, that whatever is not right, in the 
strictest sense, must be wrong. The word rendered 
"stands" is found often in the sense of "remaining" 
or " staying " in a place or a condition, but also in that 
of " persisting," in a course. Thus we read, " Stand not 
[that is, ' persevere not '] in an evil thing." ^ 

"The scornful," are those who ridicule and mock the 
commands and duties of religion, natural affection, or 
ordinary morals. The same word occurs in the verse 
" Fools make a mock at sin," ^ and in the words " Be ye not 
mockers." ^ An old proverb speaks of " the fuller's hand 
being subdued to that he works in," — that is, taking the 
colour of the dye in which it is busy ; and another tells 
us that "company makes kindred." "If you don't want 

1 Eccles. viii. 3. » Prov. xiv. 9. 3 Isaiah xxviii. 22. 



444 THE FIRST PSALM. 

to sound the bell," says a third, " don't handle the rope." 
The young moth, we are told, was counselled by its 
mother to keep even from the smoke of the lamp, if 
it would make sure against the flame. " First walking, 
then standing, then sitting," says an old writer; "little 
at flrst, everything at last." 

The word "to meditate" means, primarily, in Hebrew, 
to speak with one's self in a low, murmuring voice, as 
is natural when our mind is deeply occupied with any 
matter. But meditating or thinking on God's law may 
be very useless, as well as most profitable. All depends 
on whether we occupy ourselves with the husk or the 
kernel, — the words only, or the spirit. The rabbis, in 
old times, pondered over the law, literally, day and 
night ; but all that too many got from it was a wondrous 
subtilty of word-splitting casuistry and wire-drawn 
trifling. I have known great theologians who were 
very poor Christians. But the humble soul, which 
desires to know its duty that it may perform it, and 
seeks the comforts of the promises, to enable it to brave 
whatever may lie in the way, is rewarded richly. 

In the East, the limits of irrigation are those of 
vegetable life. The yellow, barren desert presses up 
in Egypt, to the very side of the last rivulet of water 
led over the soil, from the Nile ; and in a garden neither 
tree nor shrub can grow, unless a life-giving ripple of 
water be led, day by day, to its roots. On the plain 
near Joppa one hears the sound of the water-wheels 
always raising water to pour into troughs, from which 
threads of it are led off to the root of each orange-tree 
in the wide plantations of that fruit. Fed thus, they 
bring forth their fruit in its season, and their leaves 



THE FIRST PSALM. 445 

are always fresh and green. So, implies the psalm ^ the 
living water of heavenly influence, drawn from God's 
law, secures the well-being of the godly; or, as the 
apostle has it, godliness has the promise of the life 
that now is, as well as that which is to come, — which, 
indeed, rightly understood, is trua 

A religious man, in the true sense, develops, in being 
so, a character in which lie the elements of worldly 
prosperity, other things being equal. But religion will 
not supply the want of business qualities of an ordinary, 
practical kind ; and, in the absence of these, success 
cannot be expected. No man, however religious, could 
be a buyer of different shades of silk, if he had colour- 
blindness. Yet, pray, don't think that religion can be 
regarded, in any case, as worth having simply as an 
investment. The worth of our conduct depends on its 
motive, and to be godly for gain shows that we are 
not godly at all. The chaff from the open-air threshing- 
floors of the East, which are often on hill-tops, is whirled 
away by the wind, — a terrible image when the wicked 
are compared to it. The end of the psalm is thus as 
cheering to the lowly in heart, as it is dreadful to those 
who think they can live without God. 



THE SECOND PSALM. 

The Second Psalm, like the first, has no superscription, 
assigning it, even conjecturally, to any particular author ; 
and the critics have, hence, had an opportunity of pro- 
posing the most varied theories as to its date and its 
composer. Some have fancied it a psalm of David; 
others have assigned it to Solomon, ^N'athan the prophet, 
Isaiah, Hezekiah, or the Maccabsean king Alexander 
Jann^os, who died only about eighty years before the 
birth of Christ; so that there is a difference of well- 
nigh a thousand years, between the earliest and the 
latest period credited with its production. 

One might fancy, however, that it comes to us from 
Solomon's time, if any weight can be put on its applica- 
bility to that day ;. though there may have been other 
times, w^hich, did we know more, it would suit as closely. 
In the opening of Solomon's reign, however, we may 
imagine a movement, on the part of the subject kings of 
his empire, to break off the yoke David had imposed on 
them, and can readily think of it as at once crushed, by 
the energy and skill of the young king. Certainly we 
know of no projected rising of the nations against David; 
and, moreover, he was anointed at Bethlehem, not in 
Zion, where Solomon, apparently, was consecrated, as 
David's successor. The style of the Hebrew has been 
thought to mark the Solomonic age, and thus, on different 

446 



THE SECOND PSALM. 447 

grounds, this time, as justly as any other, may be fancied 
the right one. 

By the " nations " in the first verse, called goim in the 
Hebrew text, were meant any except the people of Israel; 
so that the expression is equivalent to " the Gentiles^" or 
outside heathen populations, and to " the peoples " of the 
second clause. Tidal, the confederate of Chedorlaomer, 
is called " the king of tlie Goim ; " ^ and we find the same 
title given in Joshua^ to a petty ruler of a portion of 
the Holy Land, either Gilgal, or, as some think, Galilee, 
which is called in Isaiah,^ also Galilee of the Goim, or 
nations. In the same w^ay, " Leummim," the word trans- 
lated "peoples," is used in Genesis* for an Arab tribe, 
descended from Abraham ; and thus the limited meaning 
attached to these two words help us to measure the force 
of the expressions, in verse 2, about " the kings of the 
earth." 

The word "messiah" in that verse, translated "anointed," 
is used habitually of the Jewish kings, as consecrated 
to their office by anointing, and therefore most sabred. 
Thus Saul is called God's ''messiah,"^ and so is David ;^ 
so also, is the Jewish king, generally, as such ; ^ and it is 
used of Cyrus, King of Persia, by Isaiah : " Thus saith 
Jehovah to his messiah, to Cyrus." ^ Priests also received 
the same name, as when we read of the high-priest as 
" the priest, the messiah ; " that is, anointed.^ In verse 
6 the word translated " set " in the Authorised Version, 
and "anointed" in that which I have given, is thus 
rendered in the margin, its meaning being " to pour," or 

1 Gen. xiv. 1. 2 Josh. xii. 23. -^ Isa. ix. 1, 4 (Jen. xxv. 3. 

^ 1 Saio. xii. 3, 5 ; xxiv. 6, 10 ; xxvi. 9, 11, 23 ; 2 Sam. i. 14, IG. 
6 2 Sam. xix. 21 ; xxiii. L ; Ps. xviii. 50. '' Ps. xx. ; xxviii. 8. 

8 Isa. xiy. i. 9 Lev. iv. 3, 5, 16; vi. 22. 



448 THE SECOND PSALM 

"pour out," whether libations to God,^ or molten metal 
in casting an idol or other object/ or the oil of consecra- 
tion, on a king, or on the "Dukes of Gihon," the "princes" 
of the Palestine nations assailing Israel, or the " princes " 
of the " king of the north ; " that is, of the Graeco-Syrian 
dynasty.^ 

In verse 7 the word translated " begotten " means, 
evidently, "created as king" — appointed, constituted, 
made to begin, as such. It cannot mean that he was 
born on that day ; for it speaks of him as installed on it 
as the Anointed, reigning far and near, under Jehovah, 
who, having consecrated, would defend him. The won- 
drous honour of being named his Son, by God, though 
applied to our Lord in a sense altogether different 
from that in which it was ever used of any other, is 
not uncommon in the Old Testament. Thus we read 
of " the sons of God." ^ In the Psalms (Ixxxvi. 6) we 
read, " I have said, Ye are Gods (0 ye kings), and aU of 
you sons of the Most High." In another Psalm (Ixxxix. 
27) it is said of " David," whom God had " anointed with 
His holy oil" (v. 20), '' 1 will make him My &st-born, 
higher than the kings of the earth." I do not quote this 
with reference to its higher bearing to a greater than 
David, but only to show the idea attached to a Jewish 
king, as made a " son of God " by the lofty consecration 
of his anointings, which constituted him, as we have seen, 
" God's messiah." Xathan, sent by God, tells David (in 
2 Sam. vii. 14) that God will be a father to Solomon, 
and that Solomon will be His son, which would be a 
striking sidelight on our psalm if we regard it as spoken 

1 Hos. ix. 4. 2 isa. xl. 19 ; xliv. 10. 

3 Josh. xiii. 21 ; Ps. Ixxxiii. 11 ; Dan. xi. 8. * Gen. vi. 2, 4. 



THE SECOND PSALM. 449 

originally by that king, or in his name. The Hebrew 
nation, also, is often honoured by the title of God's son, 
as in Exodus (iv. 22), " Israel is my son, my firstborn." 
" Is Ephraim," asks Jehovah, " my dear son ? Is he a 
pleasant child? " literally "a son of caresses." 

The fierce language of verse 9, in which the heathen 
nations over which " the messiah Son " is appointed as 
king, will be shattered by Him with His iron mace, and 
dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel, shows the difference 
between the Old Testament and the New. Very different 
is the language of Isaiah, applicable to the Messiah in 
the highest sense of the word. " The Spirit of the Lord 
Jehovah is upon me, for He has anointed me (literally, 
" made me Messiah ") to preach good tidings unto the 
meek : He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, 
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of 
the prison to them that are bound," reserving His wrath 
for the tyrants who held His people in bonds and 
oppressed them ^ 

The mace wielded by the Son, in our psalm, was a war- 
club, in this case of iron, or with an iron head, often 
spiked, and always much heavier than the stalk. With 
this, the warrior, in his wild fury of battle, crushed-in 
the skulls of as many of his so-called " enemies " as he 
could. Its use is mentioned again in one of the Psalms 
(ex. 6), in which Jehovah, at the right hand of the Jewish 
king in battle, to secure him victory, will, we are told, 
"smite in pieces the heads (of his — the king's — foes) 
over a wide country," — for this is the literal rendering. 
Pottery in the East is not tempered as it is with us, and 
hence breaks so easily that it is very difficult, as I have 

^ Isa. Ixi. 1. 

2 F 



450 THE SECOND PSALM. 

found, to bring home specimens without their going to 
pieces. Near Memphis, and on the slopes of Gerar, 
among other spots too numerous to recall, the quantity 
of broken pottery strewing the ground is beyond con- 
ception till seen ; and there is a place near the wall of 
Jerusalem where, one may say, there are quarries of 
fragments of every kind of clay vessel. To break such 
things in pieces is equivalent to a vivid image of utter 
destruction. 



THE NINETEENTH PSALM. 

The Nineteenth Psalm is dedicated, in the inscription, 
" To the Chief Musician," and is called " A Psalm of 
David." There is a hint in a text in Chronicles ^ as to 
the nature of the office of the choir-master thus mentioned : 
" And Mattithiah, . . . with harps, on the Sheminith, to 
excel," — words used in all their unmeaningness by the 
translators, from their not knowing the force of the 
Hebrew expressions, in this instance, which are clearer 
to us after centuries of progress in philological study. 
In plain English they mean that " Mattithiah " and his 
fellow-choristers " played on harps in the octave (that is, 
in the bass), to lead the song." Hence the words before 
our psalm are an instruction that it is to be performed 
under the direction of the official who thus leads the 
music, which, as the verse of Chronicles before that quoted 
tells us. included also " psalteries " — a kind of stringed 
instrument, apparently more or less like our guitar — " on 
Alamoth," or, " after the manner of virgins," or soprano ; 
so that the temple had part-singing in some degree, 
accompanied by arranged instrumental aid. 

That the name of David should have been given as 
author of the psalm, has not hindered many different 
opinions respecting its age and composition ; for the titles 
in the Psalter must have been largely conjectural, since 

1 1 Chron. xv. 21. 
451 



452 THE NINETEENTH PSALM. 

they seem to have been added long after the return from 
Babylon. 

Most scholars have fancied our psalm made up of two 
parts : one reaching to the end of the sixth verse, and 
forming a fragment of a longer ode, of which the rest is 
now lost ; the other dating from a much later period, and 
embracing the rest of the psalm. But in the case of 
this lyric, as in that of the other psalms, the dates 
proposed vary so greatly, that it is impossible to re- 
gard the whole as more than so many unauthoritative 
guesses. 

Looking up to the calm, clear Syrian sky, which knows 
no clouds for months each year, the testimony it bears, 
alike by day and night, to the majesty of God, — here 
called by the ancient name El, "the Mighty One," — 
speaks out to the heart of the poet, till he pours forth 
his soul in a lofty expression of emotion. 

The vsun is poetically compared to a bridegroom, who, 
after resting through the night in his marriage chamber, 
comes forth rejoicing, at dawn, to run his course. The 
Hebrews fancied that at his going down, the orb of day 
began an unseen return, under the earth, to the point 
from which he sets forth each morning.^ The voice of 
the heavens is inaudible by the outer senses, but speaks 
sublimely in lessons to the soul. 

The diherent names given to the "law" are striking. It 
is called " the testimony," " the statutes," " the command- 
ment," *' the fear," and the " ordinances," " of Jehovah," — 
a copiousness of reverence which seems to point, for the 
date of the second part of the psalm, to the later age, in 
which the study of the law, during and after the return, 

1 Eccles. i. 5. 



THE NINETEENTH PSALM. 453 

had become the one engrossing conception of religion to 
the Jews. 

In the tenth verse the word debash, translated " honey," 
means, also, the sweet syrup of grapes, which is much 
esteemed in the East. The juice is boiled down to a half 
or a third, and forms, at this day, an article of export 
from Palestine to Eygpt, as well as a much-prized condi- 
ment in the Holy Land. Perhaps it is well to understand 
this as meant, in the first of the two clauses, since the 
honey of bees, dropping from the comb, is mentioned in 
the second. 

It is very striking to notice the difference between the 
earlier ages of Jewish history and those after the exile to 
the Euphrates, in the prominence assigned in them, re- 
spectively, to the " law." Erom many incidental expres- 
sions in the earlier prophets, we see that it was more or 
less known to them; and the temple service from the 
time of Solomon, like that of the new tabernacle, under 
David, in Jerusalem, was copied from the tabernacle 
service of Shiloh and the wilderness. But, while some 
faithful souls thus preserved their reverence for the 
sacred writings of the nation, how completely must they 
have fallen into neglect, and how entirely must the 
knowledge of their contents have been derived from oral 
tradition, to account for the excitement of Josiah and 
his age, at the discovery of a written copy of "a roll of 
the law of Jehovah, given by Moses " ^ in some lumber- 
room of the temple, where it had lain unnoticed so long 
that its contents, when read, startled both king and 
priests, as a voice from heaven, of which, till then, tlioy 
had known virtually nothing. 

1 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14. 



454 THE NINETEENTH PSALM. 

But if the sacred writings of the Hebrews had been 
allowed to fall into virtual oblivion during the later ages 
of the monarchy, the devotion to them from the time of 
Josiah was so intense as, in the end, to become a slavish 
and superstitious worship of even their smallest letter, 
to the overlooking, in a sad degree, of their spiritual 
meaning. Even in those days, however, of bigoted con- 
centration on the external worship of the sacred words, 
there must always have been some who, like the author 
of our psalm, honoured them for their spiritual worth. 
To them the law was a light to the feet and a lamp to 
the path,^ — a metaphor striking even to us, but much 
more so in the East, where the traveller by night holds a 
lamp, hung from a cord, close down to the ground, before 
his footsteps, to show the roughnesses of an Oriental 
track. "Perfect," "trustworthy," as that is on which 
we may safely lean for support; "righteous," "pure," 
"holy," "true and righteous from beginning to end," — 
the law of God is indeed, when studied by a humble, 
loving spirit, better than much fine gold, and sweeter 
than the honey that drops from the honeycomb. 

^ Ps. cxix. 105. 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 

The Twenty-third Psalm, like almost every other in the 
Psalter, has been ascribed to very various authors and 
ages. Though there seems no good reason for question- 
ing the inscription which assigns it to David, it has 
been attributed, in turns, to Jeremiah, to the time of 
Nehemiah, to the age of the Maccabees, and, more vaguely, 
to some hero, who, after suffering much privation, is 
cheered and comforted by a full and rich supply for all 
his wants. I mention this curious instance of difference 
of opinions to show how arbitrary all theories about the 
age of any special portion of Scripture poetry, in a col- 
lection like the Psalter, must be. The mention of the 
house of the Lord in the last verse has been thought to 
point to a later date than David, since the temple was 
not built when he died ; but we find this name given 
to the tabernacle in Exodus (xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26) ; 
Deuteronomy (xxiii. 18) ; Joshua (vi. 24) ; 1 Samuel (i. 7), 
and elsewhere, so that David might well have used it 
of the tabernacle he had raised in Jerusalem. 

We may therefore, with no misgivings, regard it as 
indeed a remembrance of the hero-king of Israel, and 
may fancy it composed in the calm closing days of his 
life, when he had passed through his last and greatest 
peril, — the rebellion of Absalom. Looking over the 
strange and mingled past, his thoughts go back to the 

455 



456 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 

early days when he was leading his father's sheep over 
the bare hills, east and south of Bethlehem, where the 
wandering Arab still roams, in the hope of finding a sptjt 
of green in some gorge, where the glow of the sun has not 
yet scorched all vegetation from the ground ; and where 
some hollow in the bed of a winter torrent may still 
afford a little water for the thirsty sheep and goats. The 
life of a shepherd is lonely and humble enough in the 
most civilised country and in the richest pasture-land ; 
but it is indescribably unattractive, according to our ideas, 
in such regions as invited a Bethlehem shepherd. 

Still, it is the mind that makes the landscape, and a 
soul like that of David, communing with nature, around 
and over him, in all the wondrous phenomena of day and 
night, would find it rich in a thousand reflections and 
lessons, of which a common shepherd would have had no 
faintest thought. 

Shepherds in Palestine live with their charge, of which 
the larger part is generally goats, at some seasons, both 
day and night, sleeping and finding shelter for their fiock 
in the darkness of some cave ; for in the limestone hills 
of the Holy Land, caves abound everywhere. Hence they 
wander far afield, which, in Southern Judah, means 
through very rough country. East and south of Bethle- 
hem the surface of the uplands is worn into countless 
deep and often narrow ravines, and is, moreover, rent by 
innumerable cracks and fissures, often of great depth, 
thouo-h so narrow that one does not see them till almost 
at their edge. Through the gloomy depths of such awful 
clefts, David must often have led his charge when a 
shepherd, and might well tliink them only to be com- 
pared, for their gloom, to the darkness of death. The 



THE TWENTY-THIED PSALM. 457 

glare of the sun never penetrated such profound rents in 
the hills ; and they were, hence, the natural haunt of the 
wild beast, the snake, and the still more dangerous human 
foe, intent on robbery and violence. But through even 
such chasms, says the psalm, God had led and would 
lead the singer, as he guided his flock, in their darkness, 
to some well-known spot beyond, where water and food 
could be expected. 

The landscape sinks to the east, towards the Dead Sea, 
in successive gigantic steps of white or yellow limestone, 
from which the sunshine is reflected with a blinding 
splendour. Springs are well-nigh unknown, and the 
pools left by the heavy winter rains, in shady hollows, 
are soon dried up, except in rare spots, which the sun has 
been unable to reach. A small pool in such a region 
w^ould indeed be " water of rest," as the Hebrew has it. 
We must not, however, apply our Western standard of 
water supply, or of pasture, to the East. Any water at 
all is something for a poet to make a subject of excited 
verse ; and, as to pasture, he will write an ode on a spot 
which we should think miserably stony and wretched, as 
if it were a very garden of Eden. Green pastures which 
would delight a poor shepherd of Palestine, would not be 
looked at by our well-fed sheep. Indeed, it has often 
been a wonder to me how the Palestine sheep and goats 
kept soul and body together, on what passes in these parts 
for grazing land. 

Dr. Duff, the Indian missionary, used to explain the 
use of the two words " rod " and " staff," by his noticing a 
shepherd put the crook at the end of his staff, round the 
leg of a lamb which had ventured into a dangerous place,' 
and tlius help it up to safety ; while his rod was a stout, 



458 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 

club-like stick, with which to drive off any wild animal 
that might seek to harm one of his flock. Coleridge says, 
finely, that God's rod and His staff both comfort us ; that 
is, both His chastisements and His favours. 

One can fancy David seen by his pursuers, in the bitter 
days of Saul's fury against him, eating his humble meal in 
perfect security, on the farther side of some narrow but 
impassable cleft, needing a circuit of miles before any one 
could get near him. This would indeed be a table spread 
before him, in presence of his enemies. 

To dwell in the " House of the Lord," that is, to be able 
to resort continually to His temple, or tabernacle, was, in 
old times, a matter of supreme importance, as such a 
building was regarded as really the house of the Deity, 
where alone He could be closely approached. Hence 
David was in great trouble when forced to live for a 
time in Moab, because it not only kept him far from the 
seat of his God, at Jerusalem, but made him be in the 
territory of another god, who might be offended by a 
stranger doing homage to any divinity but himself, in his 
own domain. 

This lovely psalm was the last portion of Scripture on 
the lips of that noble man of God, Edward Irving ; and 
surely, if ever saint leaned on the arm of the eternal 
Father as he passed through the dark valley, it was he. 
Nor has its sweet word been dear to him alone. Many a 
child of God has found strong support in its still small 
voice of divine pity and lova 



THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM. 

The superscription of the Fifty-first Psalm assigns this 
noble religious hymn to David, and supposes it to have 
been written after his terrible sin with Bathsheba. There 
is, indeed, much in the psalm that seems to justify this ; 
for, like David, its author has been guilty of murder 
(v. 14) ; and, like him, he is deeply penitent. 

In the eighteenth verse, however, 6od is entreated to 
build the walls of Jerusalem, which seems to point to a 
later period ; for Jerusalem had just been taken, in David's 
day, and the Jebusite walls had not been injured. E'or 
is there any allusion, in Scripture, to any building or 
repairing of town walls by the great king. The walls, 
were, hawever, partly thrown down in the reign of 
Amaziah ; ^ and when dilapidated at a later time, they 
were repaired by Hezekiah, ^ as they had been by Uzziah 
and Jotham, after the death of Amaziah. ^ After the 
great siege by Nebuchadnezzar, the whole wall was 
levelled, and lay thus, till a new wall was raised, after 
Nehemiah's arrival, nearly a century later. But this 
wall was again thrown down by Antiochas Epiphanes, 
B.C. 168.* 

It appears, moreover, as if the public sacrifices had 
been suspended when the psalm was written,^ a state of 

1 2 Kings xiv. 13. ^ 2 Chron. xxxii. 5. ^ 2 Chron. xxvi. 9 ; xxvii. 3. 

4 1 Mace. i. 33. 5 Ps. li. 19. 

459 



460 THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM. 

things that could not apply to the time of David. As, 
therefore, it does not lessen the value of the psalm, even 
if it be the production of some one else than David, it is, 
perhaps, the safer course to leave the authorship to each 
one's judgment. Some hold it as the composition of 
David ; others assign it to the time of the Exile, or that 
of l^ehemiah, or even of the Maccabees. But, in any 
case, it is a grand confession of sin and broken-hearted 
penitence, of priceless worth to all heavy-laden spirits. 
Our English version is very fine, needing very few 
emendations. 

The name " Elohim," as that of God, is used in the 
Psalms about three hundred and sixty times, that of 
"Jehovah" about five hundred and fifty times; but 
^^Adonai" (used in verse 15) occurs hardly more than 
fifty times ; and, as seems strange, " Jehovah " is not used 
in this psalm at all. Does this show that the psalm was 
written in the late period of the Jewish Church, when the 
word " Jehovah ' was beginning to be thought too sacred 
to be written, and " Adonai " was coming into use in its 
place ? " Tender mercies " (v. 1) mean, literally, " bowels ; " 
the lower part of the body being regarded by the 
Hebrews as the seat of the emotions. Thus it is said 
of the woman who appealed to Solomon, that " her 
bowels yearned upon her son ; " ^ and the same idea is 
repeated in various passages in different portions of the 
New Testament;^ the Greek word being euphemised in 
not a few cases, in the authorised translation. 

The word " transgression " (v. 1) means " to break one's 
allegiance, to rebel, to revolt." Thus ^ it is said "Moab 

1 1 Kings iii. 26. 2 2 Cor. vi. 12 ; Phil. i. 8, ii. 1 ; Col. iii. 12. 

3 2 Kings i. 1. 



THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM. ^61 

rebelled against Israel." "Blot out" means to wipe off 
so completely that no trace shall remain, — as when it 
is said^ "Thou hast put out their name for ever and 
ever," or ^ " The Lord God will wipe away tears from 
off all faces." In verse 2, " wash me " is the word used 
for cleansing any garment by treading it in a tub or 
trough, as fullers do. It is thus stronger than the word 
to lave or wash the body, and is hence used always of 
the washing the dress of the priests, from the drench of 
blood with which it must have been soaked. " Cleanse 
me" is the word used for being pronounced Levitically 
clean, and means here a cleansing in a moral sense; 
not merely external. 

As the child of sinful man, the Psalmist feels, like Job, 
" Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not 
one. " ^ The plant intended in the Bible by " Hyssop " 
(v. 7) has not been identified ; but, whatever it was, it 
was commanded to be used in Egypt, in sprinkling the 
blood of the Passover lamb on the Jewish lintels and 
doorposts, that the angel of death might pass by the 
dwellings thus marked.* The blood of the birds, more- 
over, offered at the purification of a leper, was sprinkled 
on the now restored man from a bunch of hyssop ; ^ and 
the house cleansed from leprosy was, in the same way, 
sprinkled with blood, by a similar bunch of the plant. 
The sacrifice of the red heifer, also, killed as a sin-offering 
for Israel, was thus connected with hyssop, which was 
cast into the blood while it was being burned,^ and a clean 
person had to sprinkle the water of separation on an 
unclean to purify him.'^ To purge or purify the Psalmist 

1 Ps. ix. 5. 2 iga. XXV. 8. ^ job xiv. 4. ^ Exod. xii. 22. 

^ Lev. xiv. 6. ^ Num. xix. 6. 7 Num. xix. 18. 



462 THE FIFTY-FIEST PSALM. 

with hyssop, therefore, \Yas to pronounce him, in any case 
legally, and in this case morally, clean. 

The lofty spirituality of the psalm is very striking. 
The merely outward in religion is recognised as of no 
value in itself. God, the singer feels, has no pleasure in 
the victims bleeding on the altar ; He takes no delight, 
even in whole burnt- offerings, sending up smoke and 
tiame. The true sacrifices acceptable to Elohim are a 
broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, it is felt, 
God will not despise. This true prophet-note is found 
once and again in the Old Testament, ■'' The Lord " — we are 
told, " is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart ; and 
saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.^ Thus saith the 
high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name 
is Holy ; I dwell in the high and lofty place, with him 
also that is of contrite and humble spirit.''^ Then, among 
others, we hear Micah proclaiming, *' He hath shewed thee, 
O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of 
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God ? " ^ jSTothing in the jS'ew Testament 
goes to the root of the matter more than such texts. 
They are, in truth, an anticipation of the words of our 
Lord, " True worshippers worship the Father in spirit and 
in truth : for God is a Spirit.* 

1 Ps. xxxiv. 18. 2 jsa. Ivii, 15; see also Ixi. 1 ; Isvi. 2. 

3 Micah vi. 8. * John iv. 23, 24. 



THE SEVENTY-SECOND PSALM. 

The authorship and age of the Seventy-second Psalm 
have been as variously decided by critics as those of the 
other sacred odes of the Psalter, although it is associated, 
at its opening and close, with the names of both Solomon 
and David. The inscription at the beginning, however, 
all authorities appear to feel, ought to be " by " Solomon, 
not " for " him ; and this at once points to the concluding 
verses as originally belonging to some other psalm. But 
it seems impossible to imagine that even an Oriental 
king, whatever adulation he might sanction his subjects 
giving him, could have composed such a sounding eulogy 
of himself. Nor can we imagine it composed by Solomon, 
in high-wrought poetical anticipation of the future glory 
of his foolish son Eehoboam. Moreover, it is not the 
fact that Solomon was a gracious king to the poor and 
needy. Instead of that, he was a heartless despot, who 
so oppressed all classes, that his empire was ready to 
fall to pieces, from general discontent, at his death. 

But to whom can the psaim refer, if we are driven 
from Solomon and Eehoboam ? Strange to say, the idea 
that has found most support is, that it was written by 
some unknown poet, in praise of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
of Egypt, who was a great friend to the Jews, and, 
indeed, a second Cyrus to them, giving them wide 
privileges, and even redeeming, at his own cost, a multi- 

463 



464 THE SEVENTY-SECOND PSALM. 

tude of Jewish captives. He was raised to the throne in 
his father's lifetime, in the year 285 B.C., and, to this 
extent, we may see a fitness in the mention of the " king's 
son." Yet, whether he were the subject of the psalm or 
not, every one must feel that, in an infinitely higher 
sense, it ib fitted to hold forth the glories, of tlvL Lasuff'er- 
ing kingdom of Christ, in a way quite peculiar to that 
transcendent and more than earthly reign. The following 
is a revised translation of it : — 

1. Give the king (not his own, but) Thy judgments, God, 

And Thy righteousness to the king's son ; 

2. Tliat he may judge Tiiy people righteously, 

And Thy poor witli justice ; 

3. That the mountains may bear peace to the people, 

And the hills, through righteousness. 

4. May he judge the poor of the people (righteously) ; 

May he deliver the children of the needy, 
And break in pieces the oppressor ! 

5. They will fear thee (0 king) as long as the sun endures, 

As long as the moon ; (yea), throughout all generations. 

6. He will come down like rain on the mown grass ; 

As showers that water the earth. 

7. In his days shall righteousness flourish, 

And abundance of peace, while the moon endureth. 

8. May he reign from sea to sea ; 

From the river to the ends of the earth ! 

9. The dwellers in the wilderness, (the rebellious), shall bow 

before him : 
His enemies shall lick the dust. 
10. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles (and coasts) of 
the (great) sea shall bring him presents (as to their 
lord). 
The kings of Sheba and Seba shall pay him tribute. 



THE SEVENTY-SECOND PSALM. 465 

11. AIL kings shall fall down before him (in homage); 

All nations shall serve him. 

12. For he delivereth the needy when he cries j 

The poor, also, who have no helper, 

13. He spares the weak and needy; 

He saves the lives of the needy. 

14. He ransoms their life from oppression and violence, 

And precious is their blood in his sight : — 

15. That he, (the poor man), may live ; and to him shall be 

given gold of Sheba (by the king) ; 
And for him, (the king), he shall pray continually, 
And bless him day by day. 

16. May there be abundance of corn in the land, on the top 

of the hills ! 
May its harvest rustle like the leaves of Lebanon ! 
May men spring up in the cities thick as the grass of 

the earth ! 

17. May his name spread more and more widely for ever ! 

May it last as long as the sun ! 

[For] men shall be blessed through him ; 

All nations shall call him blessed. 

18. Blessed be Jehovah Elohim, the God of Israel, 

Who only doeth wondrous things ; 

19. And blessed be His glorious name for ever : 

And let the whole earth be filled with His glory ! 
Amen and Amen. 

" From sea to sea," in verse 8, means " from one side of the 
ocean, then thought to surround the world, to the other ; " 
and "the river" is a name used of the Mle and the 
Euphrates, from their importance, but here intended for 
the latter. 

Visions of glory so transcendent must, in any case, 
have proved largely the golden dreams of poetry, as 

2 G 



466 THE SEVENTY- SECOND PSALM. 

applied to any political dominion. But even their 
magnificent anticipations fall short of the reality when 
the spiritual reign of Christ is regarded as the realisation 
of their ideal. Ever since His words first proclaimed new 
visions of the love of the Eternal Father to mankind, 
His children, and invited all who heard them to live a 
godly, righteous, and sober life, as humbly earnest to win 
His favour and gain His face in the great hereafter, men 
have been blessed in Him, and have called Him blessed. 
And still His kingdom spreads. Even among those who 
truly seek to follow Him, no one can boast of doing so 
without many failures, and we cannot hope that in the 
multitudes who are less devoted, there will not be very 
much that is beneath the Christian standard. Still, how 
much the world owes to-day to Christianity ? The spirit 
of the age, in Christian countries, is a tribute to its 
founder, unequalled in the history of any other religion, 
and thus a direct result of the long-forgotten labours of 
the faithful souls, who, as the first missionaries to these 
lands, now see — in another world — the bread cast by 
them, ages ago, on the waters, returning after so many 
days. 

It may be said of the soldiers of the cross who in our 
day have taken their place, as it is said of the heavens, 
" There is no speech nor language, where their voice is 
not heard." England, America, and Protestant Europe 
has each its small army of noble men and women, doing 
battle with sin in almost countless spheres. Wherever 
one goes he finds them. At Cairo and up the Nile I had 
the pleasure of visiting American missions. The schools 
at Cairo, under the care of American women, seemed to 
me most admirably conducted. Nor could there well be 



THE SEVENTY-SECOND PSALM. 467 

a more delightful sight than the missionary establishment 
at Assiout, also American ; while at Thebes I was enter- 
tained, in native fashion, by an Arab sheikh who was an 
elder of the Presbyterian Church. The American College 
at Beyrout needs no commendation from me. Its praise 
is in all the churches. Long may its charming president, 
Dr. Bliss, see the spreading fruits of his toil, and so may 
it be with all the band of godly, able men, who in these 
parts live for the glory of the Lord of love. 

Through the whole Turkish empire the influence of the 
American missionaries is felt each year more widely ; the 
only fear being, that their growing power may lead the 
government to shut up posts, which radiate so much light 
into the darkness by which the ruling classes profit, at 
the terrible cost of the general populations. The schools 
in connection with the missions are, in all cases, the chief 
agency for infusing the truth into the native mind ; but 
I have thought that even more use might be made, in all 
ndssions, of trained medical men than I have seen. Mrs. 
Bishop, the great traveller, told me lately, that she had 
spent a long time in the London hospitals, fitting herself 
for medical usefulness, before she began her wanderings, 
and that, as a hakim, or doctor, she could travel safely 
through the most barbarous races. It was thus, indeed, 
with our Lord Himself ; for He went about continually 
doing good, and healing all manner of diseases and sick- 
nesses among the people. Poor creatures, wearied and 
heavy laden, need the sorrows of life to be relieved, as 
far as sympathy and skill can lighten them, and are so 
touched into friendship with their benefactors, as to 
listen fondly to their counsels, which otherwise they 
would not have waited to hear. 



EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 

The Eighty-fourth Psalm, one of the most exquisite in 
the whole Psalter, is fitly inscribed " To the chief Musician 
upon Gittith," if the fancy have any ground that that term 
refers to a favourite "march" of David's Gittite body- 
guard, — the men of Gath, — to whom he committed the 
safety of his person. The stirring flute music of the band 
of the brave six hundred, as, under the faithful Ittai, their 
brother Philistine and their colonel, they marched out, 
with their royal master, when he fled from Jerusalem to 
escape the malignity of Absalom, might well have been 
adopted, in after days, by the Temple music-masters, for 
just such odes as this song of tender rejoicing in the 
things of God. On the other hand, " Gittith " has been 
regarded as a stringed instrument, and even as meaning, 
" To be played on the ' cithara,' " a " guitar," strung with 
wire, and played with a plectrum or quill " brought from 
Gath by David." In any case, " the chief musician " never 
had a more charming hymn to be warbled forth by his 
choir or played by his orchestra. 

The date of our psalm is a mere matter of conjecture. 
It has been variously fancied a song of a Levite driven 
out by Athaliah ;. a composition of the exiled King Jecho- 
niah, when halted for a night near Hermon, on the way 
to Babylon ; or of some priest carried away with Jecho- 
niah ; or of a priest ordered off to Syria by one of its 

468 



THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 469 

Greek kings, — perhaps Onias III., High Priest in B.C. 199. 
He is said to have been the collector of the second section 
of the Psalter, and was banished to Banias, or Cesarea 
Philippi. But, as one critic justly says, " They weary 
themselves in vain who try to discover the author of this 
lovely psalm." 

The sons of Korah, to whom the musical care of the 
psalm is assigned, were the descendants of the Korah who 
was compromised, with Dathan and Abiram, in their 
opposition to Moses. Three sons of Korah escaped the 
catastrophe of their house ; ^ if they were not, rather, son, 
grandson, and great-grandson.^ From this small remnant 
of the clan sprang one of the great musical families of 
Israel. The Korahites were among the Levite choirs who, 
in Jehoshaphat's reign, " stood up to praise the Lord with 
a loud voice on high." ^ Heman, one of them, in the four- 
teenth descent from Levi, was intrusted by David with 
the charge of both the vocal and instrumental service of the 
Temple,^ in association with two others of their gifted race. 
Twelve psalms are connected with the name of these 
Korahites, and have been regarded by many as their 
composition ; ^ but it is a question whether they were the 
authors of these specially fine odes, or only the musicians, 
who set them to fitting strains. All the clan, however, 
were not so distinguished ; for we find one branch of it 
acting as doorkeepers of the Temple, though even this 
office was not without dignity.^ 

The word translated "amiable," in the first verse, 
might be rendered, perhaps more forcibly, "What are 

^ Num. xxvi. 11 ; Exod. vi. 24. 2 1 Chron, vi. 22 f¥. 

3 2 Chron. xx. 19. * 1 Chron. xv. 16-22. 

^ Ps. xlii.-xlix., Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxxvii. , Ixxxviii. ^ 1 Chron. ix. 19. 



470 THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 

the delights " (of Thy tabernacles) ; for it is plural, and 
is repeated in the inscription to the Forty-fifth Psalm 
as a "Song of loves." The name "Lord of hosts" is 
found ten times in the Psalms, but not in the earlier 
books of Scripture ; its first use being in 1 Samuel,^ 
and it does not occur in 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, 
Job, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, or Ezekiel, and is 
rare in some other books. But, on the other hand, we 
find it fifty-eight times in Isaiah, seventy-two times in 
Jeremiah, forty-eight times in Zechariah, and twenty -four 
times in the short Book of Malachi. It alludes to the 
glory of Jehovah, as head of the armies of the heavens, 
consisting of the angels and all other higher beings. 
Thus we read in 1 Kings,^ " I saw Jehovah sitting 
on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by 
Him." Psalm ciii. 21 reads, " Bless Jehovah, all ye His 
hosts ; ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure ; " and 
Psalm cxlviii. 2 says, " Praise ye Him, all His angels : 
praise ye Him, all His hosts." 

In verse 2, the word "longeth" means, literally, 
"grows pale;" in this case by deep anxiety of mind. 
" Fainteth " might be rendered " pines away," both words 
embodying the idea of intense yearning for the delight 
of approaching God in His house, which, to the Jew, 
was the only place where he could be really near Him. 
Even to this day, indeed, the race always turn their 
faces, in prayer, to the sacred spot where, of old, " His 
honour dwelt." ^ They thought of Him as literally 
" sitting between the cherubim," and thus, to be far 
from Jerusalem, was to be, in a very painful sense, far 

1 i. 3, 11. 2 xxii. 19. 3 Ps. xxvi. 8. 



THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 471 

from God, " their exceeding joy." By the " courts of the 
Lord " are meant the precincts of the Temple as a whole, 
including the open space before it, which, though, in the 
times of the first and second Temples, only half as large 
as in the days of Herod's Temple, was not less than a 
number of acres in extent, the present size of what 
was once the Temple enclosure measuring as many as 
thirty-five. 

Trees rose then, as now, over the wide area, so that one 
of the psalmists could compare a habitual frequenter of 
the sanctuary to a tree planted in the courts of the Lord.^ 
In the East one sees birds fly out and in, alike at houses 
and sacred buildings. Doves, for example, in some parts 
of Palestine, have their nests inside the house, in holes 
made for them in the house wall ; and at Constantinqple 
the flocks of pigeons which abound, flutter out and in 
through the grand marble mosques, lighting where they 
please, and, I fancy, breeding on any ledge of the great 
structure they may select. I do not, however, see how 
sparrows or swallows could use the Temple altars for 
breeding-places ; for there were only two, of which the 
altar of incense stood in the Holy Place, while the other, 
the great altar of burnt-offering, was in constant requisi- 
tion for sacrifices. ^N'or was the time of the psalm one 
of local ruin, when the Temple lay desolate ; for wor- 
shippers are described as dwelling in God's house, and the 
Psalmist envies those who are free to make a pilgrimage 
to Zion, to appear before God. Perhaps the expression is 
only a poetical one for the sanctuary as a whole. 

The priests on duty " dwelt " in the Temple, and the 

1 Ps. xcii. 13. 



472 THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 

Psalmist, if a priest, may have thought of the happiness 
of those thus favoured; but it is said of Anna that 
she departed not from the Temple, but served God 
with fastings and prayers, night and day,^ and hence 
habitual attendance on the public services may be all 
that is meant. Pilgrimages to holy places are the holi- 
day trips of Orientals, and in Bible times were especially 
so. "Ye shall have a song," says Isaiah, "as in the 
night when a holy feast is kept ; and gladness of heart, 
as when one goeth with the pipe to come into the 
mountain of the Lord/'^ It was the same in all ancient 
religions. The roads from all parts were alive with 
crowds streaming to any of the great yearly festivals 
of the various faiths. At Khan Minieh, on the Lake 
of Galilee, I saw a great company of pilgrims on the 
way to Jerusalem to take part in the Easter ceremonies ; 
and a merrier crowd never gathered. A soul like that 
of the Psalmist, however, would be filled with far loftier 
thoughts than the wild cavalcade I met. 

The valley of Baca, or "Weeping," was, no doubt, 
some gloomy and sterile spot on the way to Jerusalem, 
supplying the Psalmist with a ready poetical image; 
its dreariness bursting out into fertility and beauty at 
the approach of the Zion pilgrims; springs breaking 
forth, and copious showers, the ideal of delight in a 
dry and thirsty land, filling the pools in it, made to 
catch the rain when it fell, and preserve it for the use 
of man and beast. Much the same imagery, it will be 
remembered, is employed in reference to the triumphal 
return of Israel from Babylon.^ 

1 Luke ii. 37. ^ isa. xxx. 29. * Isa. xli. 18. 



THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM. 473 

Who is meant by " our shield " and " our anointed " 
it is impossible to say. One of the priest-kings of 
later Jewish history would suit such language, but 
poetry is not bound by exactness of details in its glow- 
ing periods. 



THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM, 

The One Hundred and Third Psalm, one of the most- 
exquisite in the Psalter, is thought by some of the critics 
to be marked, by the Chaldee form of a number of its 
words, as belonging to a late period, — apparently to the 
latter half of the Persian domination over Judah. This 
extended from the return from captivity in B.C. 535, when 
Cyrus allowed the Hebrews to go back to Jerusalem, to 
B.C. 332, when the Holy City was taken by Alexander the 
Great, — a period of, we may say, two hundred years. 
Hence this psalm may be supposed to have been written 
some time before the year B.C. 400 ; and it may thus be 
regarded as the composition of some saintly spirit who 
was a contemporary of the prophet Malachi. 

Such a psalm offers the noblest illustration of the right 
of Scripture to be held inspired; for in no literature of 
any age or country is there an approach to the Divine 
charm whi-ch speaks in it, as from the lips of the Eternal 
Father Himself. What a story might be written, if it 
were possible to trace the windings of this rivulet of the 
Eiver of Life, in its long course, of more than two thousand 
years, through the varied landscapes of man's hopes 
and fears, and joys and sorrows ! In what multitudes of 
souls must it have gently fanned the smoking flax into 
a kindling flame ! How countless must have been the 

474 



THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM. 475 

hearts, well-nigh broken, to whom it has restored the 
gladness of fresh hope in God ! 

The Authorised Version is exceptionally happy in its 
translation of this pearl of great price, but the different 
uses of words in our translations of Scripture often 
throw light on their fuller meaning. Thus we find the 
word so often used in our psalm, " to bless," rendered,^ 
"let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker;" so that to 
bless God is to bow before Him, in lowly gratitude and 
adoration for all His mercies, but, still more, for the 
glorious majesty of His character, as revealed to us in His 
works and word. Between man and man, it means the 
invoking blessings from God on each other; and as the 
greetings of neighbour with neighbour, in the East, take 
this religious form, we find it very properly rendered, in 
not a few texts, by "salute." Thus we read- that Elisha 
told Gehazi, " If thou meet any man, salute (that is, ' bless ') 
him not ; and if any salute (' bless ') thee, answer him not 
again." Salutations among Orientals are so elaborate that 
they cause great loss of time, — which, however, is of no 
value to these easy-going races. 

The idea connected with the word rendered' " soul " 
was very different, among the Hebrews, from our use of 
it. It means, primarily, anything that breathes, or even 
gives off a perfume. Thus the word translated " tablet," in 
the Authorised Version, in Isaiah iii. 20, but rendered 
I " perfume boxes " by the Eevisers, in the Hebrew is 
literally " houses of the soul." In the account of 
Creation ^ the word means simply " life ; " for every 
beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and every- 
thing that creepeth upon the earth, is said to have a living 

1 Ps. xcv. 6. 2 2 Kings iv, 29. 3 Qen. i. 30. 



476 THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM. 

soul. All the physical appetites are ascribed to this, and 
it is also the seat of the feelings, affections, and emotions ; 
but it was only at a comparatively late period that the 
idea of the soul in our sense, as a separate immortal 
principle, was realised among the Jews. The full con- 
ception of immortality is a gift of Jesus Christ, who, as 
we are expressly told, " brought Kfe and immortality to 
light.i 

The word " redeemeth," in the fourth verse, is one of 
frequent occurrence in senses peculiarly Oriental. In 
Leviticus,^ it is to ransom a field, by the next of kin 
to the owner, paying back the price. The " avenger," or, 
as we now say, the " revenger," " of blood," is also in the 
Hebrew called its "redeemer," it being his imperative 
duty to demand or inflict punishment for the blood of a 
kinsman, as the nearest to him. To be a "goel," or 
redeemer, was, in fact, to perform the part of a kinsman, 
in any of its numerous obligations. When used in 
relation to God's dealings with man, any idea of claim 
must, of course, be cast aside, though we cannot tell how 
far the simple minds of early ages coloured their relations 
to heaven, by those in which they stood to their fellow- 
men. " I know," says Job, " that my redeemer liveth ; " ^ 
that is, he knew that God lived, who would deliver him 
from his troubles, as the avenger of one who had been 
faithful to Him. 

In verse 5, the renewing youth like the eagle, is only 
an allusion to the wonderful length of life peculiar to 
that creature, which has been known to thrive, even in 
captivity, for more than a hundred years. 

It is striking how often we meet, in Scripture, with 

1 2 Tim. i. 10. - xxv. 25. ^ job xix. 25. 



THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM. 477 

notices of the " oppressed " (v. 6) ; but the despotism 
which in all ages has prevailed in the East explains it. 
"We can, in the main, feel that rights and property are 
secure among us ; but the corruption of the fountains of 
justice among Orientals, leaves every one more or less 
exposed to official robbery or private extortion. From 
the highest to the lowest, every one, as a rule, takes 
advantage of his neighbour, by whatever form of craft or 
violence he feels able to use with safety to himself. The 
unjust judge, the extortioner, and the powerful robber, so 
often mentioned in the Bible, still flourish. I slept in 
the tower of a sheikh who, till stripped of well-nigh 
everything he had, by the Turkish Government, and put 
in terror of his life, had plundered all who passed through 
his district. No wonder, then, that oppression is spoken 
of more than a hundred times in Scripture, and that we 
should hear so much of the unjust man and of robbery. 

The height of the heaven above the earth, among the 
Hebrews (v. 11), must have been much the same as 
among other simple communities ; perhaps like the idea 
of an English peasant, who told me he supposed the skies 
were five miles up, at any rate. In Job,^ heaven is 
represented as resting on mountains, which serve as 
its pillars; and it had doors,^ through which God sent 
down the manna to Israel. It had also its windows,^ 
through which God sends forth the rains and the 
lightnings.* All this shows how simple were the notions 
of these grey fathers of the world. 

The scorching of the grass (v. 16) is due to the east 
wind, which brings the glowing heat of the Syrian deserts 

1 xxvi. 11. 2 pg ixxviii. 23. 

^ Gen. vii. 11 ; viii. 2, * Job xxxviii. 25. 



478 THE HUNDRED AND THIRD PSALM. 

over which it blows.^ When it comes in spring, it makes 
the heat unendurable, and withers up and scorches all 
leaves and flowers and grass.^ The verse reminds one of 
the couplet of Dr Johnson : 

" Frail as the leaf that quivers on the spray ; 
Like it we flourish, and like it decay." 

The contrast between the short-lived grass and the mercy 
of the Lord, w^hich is from everlasting to everlasting, is 
beyond expression touching, to a creature so helplessly 
dependent on it as man. May the Eternal Father find in 
us that lowliness and love which will make Him show 
mercy to us in that day ! 

1 Jer. iv, n. 
2 Gren. xli. 6, 23, 27 ; Ezek. xvii. 10 ; xix. 12 ; Hos. xiii 15 ; Jonah iv. 8. 



WISDOM FROM THE PROYERBS. 

TRUE WISDOM, 

Pkoverbs, Chapter I. 

The prosperity to which Israel attained under Solomon, 
although concealing abuses destined very soon to paralyse 
it, caused, as one of its results the founding of a school 
of literature, which, henceforth, held a prominent place 
in the history of the national religion and morals. The 
great king himself is said to have composed three 
thousand proverbs,^ the word including, apparently, not 
only sententious sayings of special pith and wisdom, but 
multitudes of the fables dear to Orientals, in which trees 
and animals are introduced as living, and we might say as 
human beings, — compositions like the parable of Jotham,^ 
or of King Jehoash.^ The example of one so famous 
naturally led thoughtful minds to cultivate so seductive a 
vein of composition, while the religious characteristics of 
the race secured its being applied to the highest questions 
of the relations of man to God, and our duties toward 
both God and our fellows. 

The Book of Proverbs, as it now stands, appears to 
have been collected, for the most part, between the reigns 
of Solomon and Hezekiah, — a period of three hundred 

1 1 Kings iv. 32. ^ j^dg. ix. 8-16: 8 2 Kings xiv. 9. 

479 



480 TRUE WISDOM. 

years. From chapters i.-ix. we have only a general title 
to the whole book. Chapters x. to xxii. 16 are prefaced 
by a special title, " The Proverbs of Solomon." Chap- 
ters xxii. 17. to xxiv. 22 are described as the " words of 
the wise." Chapters xxv.-xxix. are headed by the title, 
" These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of 
Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Chapter xxx. is 
prefaced " The words of Agur the son of Jakeh ; the 
oracle." In chapter xxxi. 1-9 we have "The words of 
Lemuel, a king ; the oracle which his mother taught him ; " 
and the book concludes with an anonymous description 
of a virtuous woman, the verses of which begin with 
the different letters of the alphabet in succession. 

The section embraced in the first nine chapters is a 
noble recommendation of wisdom, and takes the form of 
a poem rather than of proverbs in the ordinary sense. 
Verses 1-4 of chapter i. give merely the name and 
general object of the book : " The Proverbs of Solomon 
the son of David, king of Israel," which have for their aim 
to help men (1) " to know wisdom and instruction," that 
is, by warning, admonition, and reproof; (2) "to com- 
prehend the words of understanding " (translated in other 
texts " wisdom and knowledge ") ; (3) " to receive instruc- 
tion in wisdom, justice, and right, and equities" (else- 
where " uprightness," " the things that are equal," " things 
that are right," " righteously ") ; (4) " to give subtility," 
(a word translated " prudence " elsewhere) " to the 
simple ; " a class who are called, in another text, the 
" foolish," which really means here easily enticed or 
led astray — "to the yoang man" knowledge and dis- 
cretion," that is, shrewdness and sagacious common- 
sense ; (5) " that he who is wise, by giving ear, may learn 



TRUE WISDOM. 481 

still more, and that the sensible man may attain wise 
guiding maxims " (6) " through comprehending proverbs 
and deep sayings ; the words of the wise, and also their 
puzzling questions." Having stated the value of wisdom, 
the great characteristic of it in its Hebrew sense follows : 
(7) " To fear Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge ; they 
that make light of wisdom and instruction are fools ! " 

The praise of wisdom now begins, to continue to the 
end of the ninth chapter, its exordium painting, in broad 
and vivid touches, what is to be shunned and what 
striven after. A father is introduced as addressing his 
son, putting his counsels in the measured parallels 
familiar to his people : 

8 Give ear, my son, to the instruction of thy father, 
And thrust not away from thee the teacliings of tliy 

motlier ! 

9 For they are a fair garland round thy head, 
And ghtteriiig chains about thy neck. 

10 My son, if sinners entice thee, 
Do not give in to them ! 

The passage in verses 11 to 19 reveals a condition of 
society in Jerusalem only to be found in communities 
where law is very imperfectly administered, and the tone 
of public morals is very low. The speaker's son, presum- 
ably a young man in a fair position, is exhorted not to 
join any band of robbers and murderers, as if robbery 
and murder were so little condemned, or so much a 
matter of course, even among such as the son might very 
readily make his acquaintances, that the most earnest 
cautions were needed to keep him safe. It is impossible 
to conceive of a "Guide to a Holy Life" in our day, 

opening by entreaties that the reader would not go with 

2 H 



482 TRUE WISDOM. 

cut-throats or pick-purses. That so dreadful a possibility 
existed in the old Jewish community throws light, how- 
ever, on many passages in the Prophets, describing a 
state of things in which life and property were utterly 
insecure, and lawless violence carried its head as high as 
it does among the Mafia of Sicily. The warnings begin 
thus: 

11 If they say, "Come with us, let us lay wait to murder; 
Let us lurk in ambush for some victims, though they 

have given no cause for it ; 

12 Let us swallow them up alive, like the grave — that is, 

Slieol — the underworld. 
In full health, like those that go down into the pit ; 

13 We shall make a splendid haul of treasure; 
We shall fill our houses with the plunder ! 

14 If you cast in your lot with us. 

We shall all have share and share alike ! " 

15 My son, if they tempt you thus, don't go a foot with them ; 
Draw back from taking one step in the road they go. 

16 For the feet of such neopie run towards evil, » 
And hasten to shed blood ! 

17 They are no better than the silly birds that fly into the 

net. 
Even when they see it spread before them ; 

18 Knowing their danger, their schemes are, one may say, 

the laying wait for their own blood ; 
Their lurking in ambush is not for others, but for 
their own lives. 

19 Yes ! This is the end of their ways, who plot for unlaw- 

ful gain ; 
Seeking the lives of others, they lose their own ! 

Wisdom is now pictured as a personality, visiting the 
busy haunts of men, to move them to listen to her voice : 



TRUE WISDOM. 483 

20 Wisdom calls aloud, without ; 

She lifts up her voice in the streets : 

21 She crieth in the busiest places of the city, in the open 

space before the city gates, speaking thus : 

22 "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? 
How long will the scorners delight in their scorning. 
And fools hate wisdom ? 

23 Ye must answer for despising my reproof ! 

For I call you to note that I will pour out my inmost 

thoughts to you, 
I will make known to you my words. 

24 Here they are ! Because I have already called, and ye 

refused ; 
Because I have stretched out my hand to welcome 
your coming to me, and no man regarded ; 

25 But ye have set at naught all my counsel, 
And would none of my reproof : 

26 I also will laugh at your calamity ; 

I will mock when your terror comes ; 

27 When your terror comes like a destroying storm, 
And your ruin like a sweeping whirlwind ; 
When distress and anguish come upon you ! 

28 Then shall they call upon me, — but I will not answer ! 
They shall seek me earnestly, — but they shall not find me ! 

29 Because they hated knowledge. 

And have not taken pleasure in the fear of Jehovah : 

30 And did not accept my counsel : 
But despised all my reproof; 

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way. 
And have their fill of their own devices. 

32 For the turning away of the simple from me shall slay them, 
And the careless, passing prosperity of fools like them, 

shall be their ruin. 

33 But he who listens to me. Wisdom, shall dwell secure 
And have quiet without fear of evil. 



WORTHY LIFE. 
Peoverbs, Chapters II. and III. 

Heavenly Wisdom, which is represented in the first 
chapter of Proverbs, as no less marked by a love of 
openness, and appeal to the reason and conscience of 
men, than its opposite is, for secrecy and darkness, stands, 
in the second chapter, in the places of chief concourse 
in the city, warning the foolish and counselling the 
irresolute. Her hands are uplifted in earnest appeal, and 
her whole bearing like that of the noblest of the prophets, 
who pleaded, in the same way, with their generation, in 
the streets and open space at the city gates. 

The ruin of life by folly is the burden of the first 
chapter. The benefits of Wisdom, in every relation of 
man to God or his fellows, are recounted in the second. 
Everything depends on the sincerity of our desire to 
know her counsels, and our inflexible continuance in 
obeying them. We must incline our ear, apply our 
heart, cry after knowledge of her, seek her as men seek 
for silver or for hidden treasures ; and only when we do 
so will she be found. For true wisdom is the gift of 
God. To him who obtains it, Jehovah becomes a shield 
from folly and a guide in the ways of uprightness. 
Wisdom gives discretion and understanding, which will 
guard him who has them from the snares of the worth- 
less of both sexes. Without wisdom, man's path leads 

184 



WORTHY LIFE. 485 

to " the shades ; " with it, is life. While the sinner dies, 
the upright shall dwell alive in the land. As to the 
wicked, they shall be cut off, and transgressors shall be 
rooted out (v. 22). 

Hitherto the voice of Wisdom has sought to arm the 
young man against the seductions of evil associates by 
painting the calamities that such " folly" brings on him. 
In the third chapter she goes on to show, with more 
detail, the attractions of the path which she invites us 
to tread, at once in itself and in its fruits. True wisdom, 
cries she, besides all worldly benefits it secures, brings also 
the priceless honour of high favour with God. But it 
must never be forgotten that the only wisdom He recog- 
nises is that which springs from a sincere religiousness. 
This, however, will give him who has it long life, and 
quiet from fear of evil. He who values the two graces, 
kindness — that is, love — and absolute truthfulness, en- 
joined by wisdom, binding them like golden chains round 
his neck, and also writing them on the tables of his 
inmost soul, will find favour with God and man. 

The mention of these two Divine powers, love and 
truth, calls forth an exhortation to seek only that 
wisdom which rests on the fear of God, since mere 
worldly prudence is not enough. But this can only be 
done if we give up all confidence in ourselves, and lean 
on the wisdom that comes from above, — if we acknow- 
ledge our need of heavenly guidance in all our paths, 
and, while thus fearing Jehovah, resolutely turn away 
from all evil. To him who acts thus, such "wisdom" 
will be a blessing beyond thought. " It will be medicine 
to his flesh, and refreshment to his bones " (8). He who 
identifies himself in such a way with God will naturally 



486 WORTHY LIFE. 

honour Him with his substance, and with the firstfruits 
of all his increase (9) ; words which may either mean, 
generally, the exercise of a generous liberality in all 
that promotes good among men, or, possibly, the careful 
payment of tithes and firstfruits ordered by the Law. 
These, however, are not elsewhere mentioned in the 
whole book, apparently as too formal and priestly ; and 
therefore it may be better to think of the wide virtue of 
beneficence to man at large, than only of payments to the 
clergy, though no man that fears God will be wanting in 
due care of His public servants. 

To such generous bounty there is promised the richest 
acknowledgment from above. The barns of him who 
shows it will be filled with plenty, and his presses will 
stream over with new wine (lOj. It needs hardly be 
said, however, that everything depends on the motive 
of our good works. To be generous, in the belief that it 
is only an investment at high interest, with God for 
security, makes the whole a mere trick of sordid selfish- 
ness, which can bring no blessing. To give for love, 
hoping for nothing again, is very different. 

Yet we are not, in any case, to count on worldly pros- 
perity, however sincere we may be in our fidelity to God 
(11). Chastisement may be sent, even though Jehovah 
recognise us as His sons. To be afflicted. Wisdom assures 
us, may, indeed, be a sign of our heavenly sonship ; " For 
whom Jehovah loveLh He correcteth ; even as a father 
the son in whom he delighteth." That our chastisement 
should be called " correcting," in itself is consoling ; for 
" to correct " means " to make right," — not an implication 
that we were previously altogether wrong, as might be 
said of those set on evil, but as the putting into the 



WORTHY LIFE. 487 

straight road again, those who, for the moment, had lost 
it. Eliphaz was right in saying to Job much the same 
as Wisdom says to her audience, though he drew a wrong 
inference from even so consolatory a truth, in the case 
of the patriarch.^ It seems, indeed, to have been a wide- 
spread conviction through age after age ; for we have it 
here in Proverbs, which reflects the ideas of the days after 
Solomon. Eliphaz shows that it was familiar beyond 
Israel ; for he was from Teman, in Edom, and therefore 
one of another race than the Hebrew. The author of the 
Ninety-fourth Psalm, the date of which is very late, 
repeats it. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
quotes it; and it is reproduced once more by John the 
Divine in the Eevelation.^ 

A fresh eulogium on Wisdom now begins : (13) " Well is 
it for the man who has found wisdom, and for the man who 
wins understanding ; for to gain her is better than to gain 
silver, and there is more profit in having her than in having 
fine gold. She is more precious than the costly red coral 
or pearls. All the things thou prizest most are not to be 
compared with her. (16) Length of days is in her right 
hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways 
are ways of sweet delight, and all her paths are peace. 
(18) She is a very tree of life to them that make her theirs, 
and happy is every one who holdeth her fast. (19) So 
great and glorious, indeed, is she, that she was the helper 
of Jehovah, in His founding the earth and preparing the 
heavens. By His having wisdom in an infinite measure, 
He broke up the floods, so that part sank into the channels 
He had made for it, and became the ocean ; and part floated 
overhead, to be the storehouse and mother of dew." 

1 Job V. 17, 18. 2 Job y^ 17 . ps, xciv. 12; Heb. xii. 5. 6; Key. iii. 19. 



488 WORTHY LIFE. 

Having thus exalted the glories of the truly wise, a 
new exhortation to the " son " to seek this priceless 
blessing is begun: (21) "My son, keep fast hold of 
sound wisdom and discretion, and never let them out of 
thy sight ; for thus they will be life to thy soul, and grace 
to thy neck, as if it were adorned with chains of gold.^ 
Then thou shalt walk in thy way safely, and thy foot 
shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt 
not be afraid ; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy rest 
shall be sweet." 

1 Prov. i. 9. 



A CLUSTER OF PROVERBS. 
Proverbs, Chapters X. to XII. 

At the beginning of chapter x. we meet the inscription 
" The Proverbs of Solomon," and the section thus intro- 
duced continues to the end of the sixteenth verse of the 
twenty-second chapter, where a new collection of similar 
counsels begins, described as " The Words of the Wise ; " 
the sayings of various authors of repute being comprised 
in it. The earlier portion, however, with the first nine 
chapters which were joined with it, — the original " Pro- 
verbs," — constitutes the most important division of the 
book as it now stands. 

The twelfth chapter opens with fresh praise of know- 
ledge. " He who loves knowledge loves warning, admoni- 
tion, and reproof, such as parents give to children, or as 
God gives to men ; but he who hates these is as stupid as a 
cow." Yet it is largely true, even here, that " a good man 
obtains favour from Jehovah, but a plotting, wicked man, 
He condemns." This, however, to make it balance the first 
half of the verse, really implies that, whereas the good man 
gets favour from God, the man of wicked craft gets nothing 
but punishment; which can only be true of his spiritual 
worsening ; for in this world, as we know, the ungodly often 
prosper. Verse 3 continues the same moral. "J^obody 
(really) prospers through wickedness ; but the righteous 
are like a deep-rooted tree, which nothing can overturn." 

489 



490 A CLUSTER OF PROVERBS. 

A new subject is now introduced — the pricless worth 
of a truly good woman. The word translated " virtuous '* 
is rendered very differently in some texts compared with 
others. We have it translated by "wealth." ''activity/' 
"valiant," "able," "worthy," and much else; but the 
fundamental idea running through all, appears to be, as 
applied to the wife in the present verse, what Americans 
mean by " a capable woman," including moral worth, as 
well as energy, or a good head and heart. Such a gift of 
God may well be declared a crown, to the man fortunate 
enough to be her husband. The bad wife, on the other 
hand, is the greatest of earthly calamities. " A woman 
that maketh her husband ashamed is like rottenness in 
his very bones." Yet, to be no more than " virtuous," in 
our English sense, is far from enough to make a pattern 
wife. I have known many wives who w^ere indisputably 
virtuous, but pre-eminently unsatisfactory, notwithstand- 
ing. It takes a great deal more than this negative charm 
to make a woman a desirable helpmate, though it is one 
of many essentials. 

Keverting to the contrast of the evil and the upright, 
we have now the further point, that " even the thoughts, 
and, of course, much more the words and acts, of the 
worthy, are straightforward and just towards all men. As 
to the wicked, on the other hand, the counsels they give, 
which are so much more serious than secret thoughts can 
be, have treachery and deceit as their aim." " The words 
of the wicked are ambushes for the blood of others ; by 
their words, their false accusations, their false witness 
and slander, they bring their neighbours into peril of 
life." " But, in spite of all, the mouth of the upright 
shall deliver them; their innocence being made clear by 



A CLUSTEK OF PROVERBS. 491 

their straightforward truthfulness." "If a blow whicli 
casts him down falls, from any quarter, on a wicked man, 
he sinks, never to rise ; but the house of the upright 
stands firm and unshaken, blow what storms may." 

" A man is held in esteem according to the measure of 
his intelligence, understanding, and wisdom; but men 
despise him that is of a perverse heart," or, as the Greek 
text puts it, " But men turn up their nose at the man who 
is slow of heart, (or stupid)." " A man of humble posi- 
tion who is yet able to keep a slave, is better than he who 
gives himself airs and is without bread." Absolute 
poverty is wretched enough, nor is thac held up as desir- 
able, or of no weight, but a modest living, with neither 
poverty nor riches, has, the sacred writer would have us 
realise, a peculiar pleasure, if we are only contented with 
it. The having a slave, it will be noticed, is assumed as 
quite a desirable thing. Slavery has been a feature of 
Eastern life in every age, and still exists in all Oriental 
countries, in which Western supremacy has not more 
or less stopped it. Ewald, by a slight change of the 
text, translates the verse, " A humble man, if by his own 
toil he has bread, is more to be thought enviable than 
a man who busies himself after honour, and neglects to 
supply his household." But the rendering I have given is 
to be preferred. 

" The good man studies the wants and well-being of his 
beast ; but the inner heart of the wicked is cruel." The 
"bowels" were regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of 
the feelings, good or bad ; and, in this case, the word is to 
be taken in its meaning of what is hateful, for " bowels " 
is the expression in the Hebrew. Cruelty to dumb ani- 
mals is, indeed, a sure sign of moral degradation, but it 



492 A CLUSTER OF PEOVERBS. 

is, unfortunately, too common, even still. Take Italy, for 
example. In that land the treatment of domestic animals 
is horrible. I have seen flocks of sheep so nearly 
starved to death, that the owner would have been put 
in jail for his cruelty if he had been in England ; and as 
to the treatment of horses in Naples, it is dreadful. 

" He that tills his ground will make his bread sure : 
but he who is idly busy, and hunts after what is worth- 
less, has no sense." This reminds one of the fable of 
Kriloff, in which two brothers are equally industrious, but 
while the one, after a time, has his barn full of a rich 
harvest, the other can only boast of two barrels-full of 
dead flies, which he had spent the summer in catching. 
The meaning of the twelfth verse is much disputed. In 
the Greek Bible we have a striking variation, however, 
that gives a good sense : " The desires of the wicked are 
evil, but the root of the righteous is in a fortress." 
Ewald's translation is, "The desire of the wicked is a 
snare-net of evils, yet the root of the upright continues." 
That is, the net of the wicked, while set for others, 
gathers all kind of evils for the wicked himself. Delitzsch 
renders it, " The godless hunt after the gains which 
bad men seek, (but with only evil results to themselves,) 
but the root of the godly flourishes from within." 

" There lies a ruin-bringing snare in the sin of the lips ; 
but the upright man comes safe out of his straits." This 
may be paraphrased thus : Any one may easily get into 
trouble by thoughtless words, but the upright may be 
expected to clear himself, because, from the first, he has 
been careful to guard against what is wrong, or from 
giving a handle to the wicked-minded." "From the fruit 
of his mouth an upright man reaps a harvest of good ; " 



A CLUSTER OF PROVEllBS. 493 

that is, his discourse is like good seed, which, by its 
nature, brings to him good fruits. " And what a man's 
hands do shall be returned to him again." " The way of 
a fool is straight, or right, in his own eyes," and so he goes 
on, to his hurt ; " but he who listens to the counsels of 
others is wise," because our way is often right in our own 
opinion, though in reality the reverse. But to see this 
requires other eyes than our own. 



PATERNAL COUNSELS. 

Peoveebs, Chapter XXIII. 15-23. 

The famous Dr. Thomas Guthrie used to say that if the 
Book of Proverbs were made the universal reading-book 
in schools, it would be at once the greatest help to the 
maintenance of pure English and the surest source of a 
high public morality. ISTor can there be a question of 
either opinion ; for the English is perfect, and the 
morality is based on the solid foundation of healthy 
religious feeling. 

Compared, for instance, with the proverbs of Benjamin 
Franklin, in "Poor Eichard's Almanac," those of the 
Bible are recommended by absolutely opposite considera- 
tions. With Franklin, " wisdom " is shrewd common- 
sense applied to everyday affairs, so that they may be 
made to pay best, in coin, comfort, and reputation. With 
the Bible Proverbs, " wisdom " is loving obedience to 
the right, as the will of God, and, in itself, our duty 
and reward. The lower form of " wisdom " looks only 
over the sweep of our worldly interests, casting no glance 
to the heavens ; the other, first looks upwards to the 
Eternal Father, and then, filled with a deep sense of His 
claims to supreme love and reverence, sets itself to act 
as becomes the child of such a God, in putting away 
all evil from its own life and bosom, and by unselfish 
goodness in the world around. Franklin teaches selfish 

494 



PATERNAL COUNSELS. 495 

utilitarianism ; the Bible holds up the shining claims of 
" duty." 

Let me illustrate this from a few verses. ^ "My son," 
says a father to his child, " if thy heart be wise, my heart 
shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, 
when thy lips speak what is right." It is taken for 
granted that the son is not born wise, " foolishness " 
being regarded as "bound up in the heart of a child." ^ 
The Arabs have a saying very similar : " The wise man 
knows the mind of a fool, because he was once a fool 
himself." But, among the Hebrews, to be wise is not 
to be what we call " worldly-wise." It has always a 
moral sense, as we see in its influence on the spoken 
thoughts of him who possesses it. His natural, chosen 
aim is " the right," — an expression which means what is 
straightforward, perfectly truthful, without mental reser- 
vation, honest in word and deed, faithful to duty, literally 
meaning whatever is said. Can there be a finer ideal 
of character ? A man you can trust is immeasurably 
nobler, were he the poorest of the poor, than one whom 
you have to distrust, were he as rich as the Duke of 
Westminster. 

The want of this lofty wisdom is the dry rot in any 
state ; the general display of it would be that " righteous- 
ness that exalts a nation." And if one look thoughtfully 
at the subject, it is beyond question that the best man is 
the wisest man; for, after all, a man's real life is, not 
what he has, but what he is. We need to be saved from 
our worse selves. In every man there is a possibility of 
unlimited development in what is good, — that is. God- 
like ; and, with an eternal existence before us, the condi- 

^ Proy. xxiii. 15-23. 2 p^oy, ^xii. 13. 



496 PATERNAL COUNSELS. 

tions of which are, and must be, determined by our 
advancement in true worth during this short life, he, 
surely, is the wisest man who strives to be freest from 
the sordid and earthly tendencies which, as we instmc- 
tively feel, are quite unfitted for the world to come. 
The development of all that is good in principles and 
action is, in fact, so far, our salvation. 

What we are and what we become must depend on 
ourselves. No one can be good for us ; for goodness is 
the state of our own heart. It is the free choice of what 
is right, and the repudiation of what is evil. Goodness 
is not goodness unless it be deliberately our choice, and 
the choice, to have any moral worth, must be the free act 
of our will. Surely he who, with his eyes towards the 
heavens, to crave help in his purpose, makes it his aim 
to live a truly wise life (that is, a truly .worthy oiie), is 
immeasurably more sensible than the man who thinks 
himself wise if he can overreach his neighbour, by what- 
ever form of selfishness. 

No wonder that a son who shows himself nobly upright 
in all his relations, those of business competition included, 
scorning to gain a mean advantage of his neighbour, and 
keeping miles away from even the appearance of deceit, 
makes the heart of a worthy father exult. The man who 
gives himself up to folly, whether in the form of an 
absorbing passion for money, or in that of vice or frivolity, 
is like the larva in which the ichneumon fly lays its 
egg. The parasite lets the poor grub live, in a manner, 
but it eats out all the parts which would have transformed 
it into a winged creature of the air, so that, when it 
passes into a chrysalis, there is nothing left to emerge 
from it, and it dies as it lived, only a crawling worm. 



PATERNAL COUNSELS. 497 

This being so, it is fitting that the father who speaks, 
should exhort his son (v. 17) not to let his heart envy 
the apparent or outward prosperity of the unprincipled. 
Let him rather crave to have, ever, more of the fear of 
God before his eyes, all the day long; for assuredly 
there is a future, in which their seeming wisdom will 
be fed with ashes, while the hope of him who fears God 
will never be disappointed. 

He next cautions his son against wine, which must 
have been abused then, much as it is now among our- 
selves. Palestine, in fact, was a noted vine-growing 
country, as its dry chalk-hills and warm climate fitted 
it specially for viniculture. That- the result was a sad 
amount of drunkenness is seen in the repeated warnings 
of the prophets, leading, in fact, to the establishment of 
such rules of total abstinence from wine, as we see in 
the Eechabites and Nazarites, and in the prohibition 
from tasting it, commanded to the priests during their 
turn of duty. " Hear thou, my son," says the father, 
" and shew thy wisdom in this, among other things, that 
thou keep aloof from wine- tipplers ; for they are riotous 
abusers of their own lives." Some render the words 
" from gluttonous eaters," in allusion to men given to 
the pleasures of the table, generally. " For the drunkard 
and the riotous liver," he adds, " shall come to poverty ; 
and the sleep such a life induces shall clothe a man with 
rags." 

It is as if he said: "My son, live temperately and 

plainly. To give yourself to a liking for strong drink, 

or the gross enjoyments of the appetite, will unman 

you, to say nothing of its sinfulness. To drink will 

unfit you for anything, clouding the brain, and making 

2i 



498 PATERNAL COUNSELS. 

you no longer your own master. As to riotous living, 
whether at the table or in dissipation and vice of any 
kind, it will make shipwreck of your character, your 
property, your whole better self, and will bring you to 
poverty and rags. How true this is, every one knows. 
Our prisons, our hospitals, our workhouses, our mad- 
houses, tell the same story. Keep aloof from the begin- 
ning of such a life. If you would not sound the bell, 
don't play with the rope If you would not burn your 
wings, keep away from the smoke, far less the flame. 

The next counsel (vs. 22, 23) is of signal value in our 
day. The young are now prematurely old, in their 
bearing to their parents, in too many cases. They affect 
independence when they are still in jackets or short 
skirts. A true nature, however, will always feel that 
the proper attitude of children^ and youth, toward father 
and mother, is to "hearken" to them, and take the greatest 
care to treat them with all respect. Eew, it is to be 
hoped, will despise their mother when she is old, the 
fear of such a crime belonging rather to the East, where 
woman always has been so lightly regarded, than to the 
"West, where a mother, if she be worthy of that holy 
name, is the object of a half-justifiable idolatry. Yet I 
have seen aw^ful instances of filial ingratitude and worth- 
lessness. To cultivate deep respect to its parents, from 
the very dawn of a child's faculties, is the only way to 
be sure that it will venerate them in riper years. And 
such instilling of right principles into the infant mind, 
must be the special work of the parents themselves. 
The father must teach reverence towards the mother, 
and the mother must teach it towards the father. 

The lesson of a noble life could not be summed up in 



PATERNAL COUNSELS. 499 

better words than those that follow : " Buy the truth, and 
sell it not ; buy, and never sell, wisdom and instruction 
and understanding." " God is truth," and Jesus Christ 
tells us that He was born and came into the world 
that He might bear witness to the truth. Be it yours 
to say the same. To do so, is your privilege and your 
duty; for your highest aim must ever be to imitate our 
Lord. " He left us an example, that we should follow 
His steps." Be true in word and deed; true in public 
and in private ; true in politics, national and local ; true 
in business, in friendship, in religion, — in all things. 
Let no insincerity ever cloud your bosom. Finally, " be 
true to your own self, and it must follow as the night 
the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." 



THE PRAISE OF SOBRIETY, 
Proveebs, Chapter XXIII. 29-35. 

The low round hills of Palestine — low in their elevation 
above the surrounding country, though from two to 
three thousand feet above the sea — are, as I have said, 
peculiarly suited to the growth of the vine. Their soft 
chalky limestone, dry and warm, supplies the mineral 
food required, while the temperature, at once warm 
enough, but also equable, and the moist sea winds which 
bring the refreshment needed, combine to secure 
abundant and specially high-class vintages. Hence, from 
the earliest times, the wines of Palestine were famous, 
and they continued to be so until the Arab conquest, 
when the introduction of Mahommedanism forbade the 
use of all intoxicating drinks, to those who accepted the 
new creed. 

But the drink of the people of the land was not con- 
fined to wine. Fifteen hundred years before Christ, we 
read in Egyptian inscriptions, not only of the wine, but 
of the beer, of the Holy Land ; and the Hebrews, when 
they came, took fondly to both indulgences. In the Bible, 
wine, strong drink, and drunkenness are mentioned very 
often. Wine and the matters connected with it are intro- 
duced about a hundred and twenty-five times ; " strong 
drink " is mentioned eighteen times, and drunkenness and 
drunkards are brought before us at least seventy times. 

500 



THE PRAISE OF SOBRIETY. 501 

The Hebrews, therefore, must have been very far from 
the sober people we now find in their old land. Yet they 
had been absolutely total abstainers for the whole forty 
years they were in the wilderness ; for we are told ^ 
that, during all that time, they had " drunk neither wine 
nor strong drink." The order of Nazarites was instituted 
by Moses,^ as if to provide a warning and a pattern, for 
the time when the possession of the Promised Land, 
would put strong drink within their reach ; and his 
horror of possible drunkenness among priests was shown, 
by his commanding that they should abstain from even 
tasting it, during the time they were in residence at the 
tabernacle or temple, for the discharge of their turn of 
duties. 

Like ourselves, the Jews had various intoxicating 
beverages. There was beer, made from barley, with 
lupins for hops; cider, which they called "apple-wine;" 
mead, or "honey-wine," which seems to have been wine 
mixed with honey and pepper ; date-wine, made from the 
fruit of the palm, which ripens, from Gaza, south ; while 
still other " wines " were manufactured from figs, millet, 
pomegranates, and, indeed, from whatever would ferment. 
But with a divinely instituted total-abstinence society in 
their midst, from the wilderness days, in the order of 
Nazarites, and with the warning prohibition laid on the 
priests, it was clearly the fault of the people themselves, 
if they turned the fertility of these lands, which might 
have been a blessing, into a curse. 

Nor were earnest " temperance speakers " and writers 
wanting, to stimulate the masses to sobriety. The 
prophets, generation after generation, denounced 

1 Deut. xxix. 5, 6. 2 Num. vi. 2. 



502 THE PRAISE OF SOBKIETY. 

drunkenness as strongly as any modern lecturer/ and 
the Proverbs, embodying the counsels of the best of 
the Jewish nation, are vigorous in their condemnation of 
drinking. What, for example, could be more sweeping 
than the following passage ? ^ 

" Who cries ' Ah 1 ' who cries ' AVoe's me ! ' Who 
has quarrellings ? Who has complainings ? Who has 
wounds for which he has given no ground? Who has 
dark angry flashings of the eyes ? They who sit long by 
the wine ; they who go into the house to try strong, 
mixed, spiced wine." To all, the sacred counsellor says : 
"Do not thou even look at the wine, or note how 
temptingly it shows its red glow in the cup; how 
smoothly it will glide down. At the last it bites like 
a serpent, and stings like a hissing viper. Its poison 
tooth wdll pour its venom into your blood. Your 
fevered brain will make your eyes see all manner of 
fantasies, hideous and horrible, and your heart will 
speak what will shame and hurt you. Yes, you w411, 
when overpowered by drink, be swallowed up by it, so 
far as your senses are concerned, and cut off from all 
your affairs, as the man is, w^ho lies drowned in the depths 
of the sea. Drink, like a devouring flood, will sink you 
for the time, out of all that makes up your life. 

" You put yourself in as much danger if you drink, as 
he does who falls asleep on the wildly shaken top of a 
mast. It is bad enough on the deck, but in the ' crow's 
nest,' the rolling almost dips the mast in the water, 
on this side and that, each moment, making it a wonder 
that one lying in such a place is not hurled into the 

i Is^aiah v. 22 ; xix. 14 ; xxviii. 1, 7, 8 ; Jer. xxiii. 9. 
- Prov. xxiii. 29-35. 



THE PRAISE OF SOBRIETY. 503 

waves. So, the man who is drunk puts himself into a 
succession of dangers, which, in many different ways, 
may have a bad ending for him. One would think that 
all this would make a tippler pause, and give up his 
folly. 

" But, alas ! the iron net of ' habit ' has covered him, 
so that he is helpless in the toils. In spite of all he 
has suffered, and of all the dangers he has run, he thinks 
no more of them when his debauch is, for the moment, 
slept off; and this is indeed the most terrible result of 
his vice. In his muddled way, he says to himself, ' They 
beat me, that's true, but I'm none the worse ; they 
cudgelled me, but I don't trouble myself about it. I 
shall have another sleep, and then, when I wake in the 
morning, I shall go after that charming wine again, and 
have another bout.' " 

I have amplified the words of Scripture, but have 
carefully preserved the sense. The difference in some 
of the renderings, is only from a more exact presentation 
of the full meaning of the Hebrew. No modern picture 
of the folly and deadly evil of the sin of drunkenness 
could be more vivid. No appeal to give up all use of 
intoxicants could be more fervent. If we are ourselves 
sober, is the giving up of all strong drink too great a 
sacrifice to make, for our brother in danger from the 
public-house ? If so, what is our love for him worth ? 



THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE. 
Peoveebs, Chapter XXXI. 10-31. 

The Book of Proverbs very suitably closes with a eulogy, 
in poetical form, of the ideal wife.^ The first nine verses 
of the chapter are ascribed to an unknown personage, — 
"Lemuel, a king." The word translated "the prophecy" 
in our version, is made a proper name by some, so as to 
read " of Massa ; " but as no kingdom of that name is 
known, the emendation does not tell us much. 

The poem that follows is constructed so that each 
verse begins with the successive letters of the Hebrew 
alphabet, — a peculiarity recurring in Psalms ix. and x. 
and the first four chapters of the Book of Lamentations. 
It seems to have been early in fashion among Hebrew 
poets, for some critics ascribe the Mnth and Tenth 
Psalms to the age of David ; others, to the time of the 
fall of Mneveh, or to the era after the Exile. The 
eulogy on the virtuous woman, as part of the section of 
Proverbs " which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, 
copied out,".^ may reasonably be set down as very old, 
since the collection was made up of " proverbs " esteemed 
ancient in Hezekiah' s day. 

"A virtuous woman," that queen of wives, may be 
found; but pearls are more easily got than she, and she 
surpasses their exceeding worth, as the rarely fortunate 

^•Prov. xxxi, 10-31. ^ Prov. xxv. 1. 

504 



THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE. 505 

husband finds. The sense in which the term " virtuous " 
is used, may be gathered from the good qualities extolled, 
as marking the wife thus described. She is immensely 
active, devotedly domestic, skilful in managing her house- 
hold, a clever business woman, thoroughly sensible, 
gracious to all, careful to wake kindly feeling to every 
one and in every one, and, above all, — indeed, as the 
root of all, — " a woman that f eareth Jehovah." 

The heart of her husband can trust her absolutely, and 
gain by her labour will not fail him. The word for 
" husband," ^by the way, is " her Baal ; " that is, " her 
lord." She will do him good, not hurt, all the days of 
her life. How she will do so is now shown. She busies 
herself getting in wool and flax, and, having secured a 
stock of them, she works them up with a joy even her 
hands share. Woollen cloth was the staple material of 
clothing among the Jews.^ Linen of various degrees of 
fineness was also much used, as may be judged from no 
fewer than five words being found in Scripture for it. 
At present, cotton has taken the place of linen, in the 
East, to a very large extent; but in old times we find 
various "garments" and girdles, winding-sheets, towels, 
napkins, &c., of linen mentioned.^ To prepare either 
wool or flax for making cloth implies a great many 
processes, so that, even from this one source, the wife 
would have no little to fill up her time. 

As merchant ships, not content with what can be had 
near at hand, sail off afar, to spy out and use new 
markets, so the wife of our poem looks out, over a wide 
range, for chances of some advantage, in selling her 

1 Lev. xiii. 47; Deut. xxii. 11; Job xxxi, 20; Ezek. xxxiv. 3; Hos. ii. 5. 

2 Ju g. xiv. 12, 13; Isa. iii. 23 ; Mark xv. 46 ; John xi. 41 ; xiii. 4, 5. 



506 THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE. 

webs, and is careful to secure it when discovered; thus 
in a very practical sense " bringing her food from afar." 

At this day a wife in the peasant cabins of Palestine 
rises to fill her wretched lamp with oil while it is still 
dark, and does not think of lying down again, as the 
barley has to be ground for the day's bread, and the 
bread itself baked. Her husband may sleep on, but for 
her there is no more rest. The " virtuous woman," like 
her, rises before the sun, and sets the mill stones to work, 
to "give meat to her household," though she is painted 
as, fortunately, having "maidens" that is, slave-girls, to 
whom she thus early sets their various tasks for the day, 
and among these, we may hope, the heavy labour of 
grinding, which was far more suitable work for them than 
for the house-mother. 

But the ideal wife is not contented to manage her 
household, and let her husband attend to investments 
of any gain she may make, over household expenses. 
She takes a fancy to a piece of ground, and buys it with 
her profits in trade. Still more, she turns it into a 
vineyard, paying the cost from the same hoards. Nor is 
it any wonder she makes money thus; for she girds 
herself round with energy, and makes her arms strong 
by her constant industry, — words which point to her 
life as spent in physical labour of the kind now left to 
men, or to women in a very humble position. She " likes 
the taste of her gains," and, to make more, she works all 
through the night, her lamp being kept burning till 
morning. 

Any one living for a time in an Italian or Sicilian 
village will see the women standing on the top of their 
stair- wall, or other slight elevation, letting fall a distaff, 



THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE. 507 

trimmed with its oval of tow, twirling, in multitudinous 
revolutions, as the thread is twined, for weaving. This 
is part of what the " virtuous woman " does, presumably 
through the night ; winding up the yarn as it is twisted 
on the spindle in her hand, from which, when it is put 
into the loom, she will draw the threads for weaving 
her cloth. 

But while thus bent on money-making, even at the 
cost of necessary sleep, she has a far better side ; for 
she has kept her heart tender. It appears, indeed, that 
her motive in all her wonderful industry, and in her 
liking for gain, is not a selfish one, but the yearning 
desire to benefit others. " She stretcheth out her hand 
to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the 
needy." The same loving thoughtfulness and devotion 
are seen in her care of her household. On the Jewish 
hills, winter storms of driving snow are not infrequent. 
Indeed, a friend lately told me how^ he had lost his way, 
trying to get to the gates of Jerusalem, from where the 
vehicle in which he had been riding towards the city, 
had been stopped by snow, before he came in sight of 
the walls. The drift had completely obliterated all 
traces of the road. But if such fierce weather broke 
over the home of the poet's ideal wife, she needed have 
no concern ; for her motherly forethought had provided 
her whole household with thickly lined garments of 
warm scarlet cloth, so that they were at once defended 
from the cold, and notable for the fine show of their 
outfit. Everything, moreover, in her home, is in keeping 
with this. There is as little to fear from the cold by night 
as by day, for she makes coverlets, warm and beautiful,. 
for the beds. As to herself, she has the finest, most 



508 THE HEBREW IDEAL OF A WIFE. 

lovely clothing, of snowy linen and costly cloth, dyed 
with the Tyrian purple. 

Through such a wife, her husband grows in honour, 
and takes his place among the sheiks of the land when 
they sit in council, to settle disputes, or transact town 
affairs, in the public gathering-place, outside the gates. 
No wonder her family is so favourably known, for her 
cleverness is seen on all sides. She makes up, besides 
spinning the cloth for them, night-dresses, curtains, 
cloth for samplers, and body-linen of all kinds, but 
especially the smock-frocks or blouses of linen, worn by 
the mass of the people in the hot weather. For all this 
is given, in the Talmud, as included in the Hebrew word 
used. She makes costly girdles, also, and sells them to the 
Phoenician trader, from whom she gets her Tyrian dye. 

Commanding ability and a dignified bearing sit on her 
like a robe ; and she laughs at the time to come, knowing 
she is well prepared to meet it. But she is good as well 
as able. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and loving 
counsel is in her words. She takes good heed how 
things go on in her house, seeing that all goes right in 
its daily life and daily provision, and assuredly does not 
eat the bread of idleness. No wonder that her sons, 
as they grow up, call her " blessed," or that her husband 
praises her, declaring that, though "many daughters of 
Israel may have shown high qualities, she had excelled 
them all." 

Now comes the moral by the poet. " Womanly charms 
deceive, and beauty is only a breath ; but men will praise 
a woman that fears Jehovah. Take care that she enjoy 
her full share of the blessings she creates, and let her 
works themselves speak for her, before all, in the gates." 



''THE preacher:' 

The portion of the Bible which is known to us from the 
name " Ecclesiastes," given it in the Greek version of 
the Seventy, is called in Hebrew Kohelethj which means 
" one who gathers a circle of hearers." It corresponds, 
therefore, more exactly to the Greek word, than to the 
term " preacher," by which it is rendered in the English 
version. 

The Koheleth of the book is identified with Solomon, 
by the description, " son of David, king in Jerusalem," It 
is a question whether Solomon is thus described as the 
author, or is introduced dramatically into the work of a 
much later writer. "The Wise King" was regarded, 
naturally, as the originator of a class of writings which 
have come to be known as the " Wisdom Literature," and 
which treat of morals and the practical philosophy of 
life. For this reason it was not unusual, among the 
later Jews, to connect his name with compositions of 
this class, even where there could be no supposition that 
he would be taken for the actual author. Thus we have 
The Psalms of Solomon, a book in favour with the 
Pharisees, and The Wisdom of Solomon, which is included 
in the Old Testament Apocrypha; being found in the 
Greek translation of the Old Testament. 

It is held by the majority of critics, on good grounds, 
that Ecclesiastes cannot have been the work of Solomon. 

609 



510 *'THE PREACHER." 

Various characteristics of the Hebrew of the book, and 
many other grounds, forbid the ascription of it to the 
wise king. The date, however, is uncertain. Modern 
critics have placed it at various points between the times 
of Jeremiah and those of Herod the Great. The internal 
data seem to justify those who refer it to the last days 
of the Persian domination, w^hich ended with Alexander's 
victory at Arbela, B.C. 333. The historical allusions show 
that the author lived amid the depression of an unjust 
and capricious Oriental despotism, in a society heaving 
with discontent and swarming with spies, but destitute 
of hope of improvement.^ The choice of Solomon to be 
a mouthpiece for the author's reflections, was due to his 
historic position and great mental gifts. 

The opening words of the book give the keynote to 
the whole : " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," — words 
which end the book as they begin it. The doctrine of 
human immortality had not become, as yet, an article 
of Hebrew faith, and he, like the men of his day, can 
think only of a dim, ghost-like existence in Sheol.^ "The 
spirit returning to God who gave it" is with him no 
indication of belief in future existence, but the intimation 
tliat the Divine breath which made him a living being 
passes back to God, and is no more. 

This explanation of the point of view of the writer, 
helps us to put ourselves in his place, in the counsels 
with which his gloomy reflections are interspersed, as, 
for example, in the fifth chapter.^ "Take care,' says he 
there, "how you go to the house of God" (Elohim). 
Moses was ordered to take off his shoes ; for the place 

1 Eccles. iii. 16 ; iv. 1 ; v. 8 ; viii. 9 ; x. 5 ff., 7, 20. 
'^ Eccles, iii. 19 ; \i. 6; ix. 5. ^ Eccles. iv. 17 of the Heb. 



"THE PREACHER." 511 

on which he stood was holy ; and Orientals, even now, 
take off their shoes on going into a house, lest the 
chamber they enter may have at some time been used 
for prayer. Isaiah, moreover, reproaches his generation 
with trampling the holy courts like so many cattle.^ 
"To draw nigh to hear," and thus to offer the high 
sacrifice of true obedience, with a calm, collected spirit, 
"is better," we are told, than to go to the holy place 
with light thoughts, like foolish people who, not fancying 
that they sin in doing so, present mere formal offerings, 
in which the heart has no share. Even before the rise 
of the synagogue, the reading of the Law in set lessons 
was part of the Temple service ; and there were, besides, 
psalms, prayers, and the " blessing," so that worshippers 
could " hear," and needed not, as in old times, merely to 
look at the priest going through his functions. . 

In the same way men should beware, says Koheleth, 
of thoughtless praying or vowing, in their visits to the 
sanctuary. " Be not quick (or rash) with thy mouth, 
and let not thine heai't be hasty to utter anything before 
God ; for He is in heaven, and thou upon earth ; there- 
fore, seeing He is so exalted, let thy words be few.'"^ For 
just as a confused dream comes through too much toil 
and exhaustion, so, through the multitude of words, 
tiring and confusing the mind, a man's prayer becomes 
meaningless, sinful folly. 

He now proceeds to give counsel respecting vows, to 
which his countrymen were much addicted. To make 
these in a moment of anxiety, and not to pay them when 
the mental excitement was over, was as common among 
them as among the people of the Middle Ages, who were 

1 Exod. iii. 5 ; Isa. i. 12. ' Prov. x. 19 ; Matt. vi. 7. 



512 "THE PREACHER." 

constantly vowing to give this or that to the shrine of 
some saint, if he would help them in some trouble, and 
as constantly neglecting to carry out what they had 
promised when the danger was past. " But, when thou 
vowest," says Koheleth, " perhaps as thou prayest, delay 
not to pay it, for fools are displeasing to both God and 
man, and have no steadfast mind." Therefore do not lie 
to God. Better not to vow at all, than to vow and not 
perform. 

Do not be hurried into sin by your mouth. If a 
messenger come from the priest for what you vowed, 
do not tell him either he or you were wrong, and try to 
get out of it. Instead of getting a blessing, you will, by 
such mockery, bring down the anger of God on yourself, 
and rouse Him to destory your prospects, by taking away 
your health, or by upsetting your plans. Be careful, 
therefore, how you vow ; for in too many words, as in the 
confusion of a dream, there is always vanity. But fear 
thou God ! To do so, however, implies a belief that God 
rules the affairs of men; and since this is so, says the 
Preacher, ''if thou seest the oppression of the poor, by 
violence, extortion, pillage, or fraud; if thou seest the 
outrage of all justice and right by the authorities in a 
pashalic, do not give way to fear and wonder, — be not in 
consternation ; for over the great man who oppresses the 
lowly there stands a higher, who oppresses him 'in turn ; 
and both have over them a still higher, — that is, God, 
who will call both to account. Indeed, even the great 
king has bounds set to his power; for he himself is 
dependent on the industry of his people in the field." 

Nor do they need to wonder at the great inequalities 
of man's lot. All is not gold that glitters. There are 



" THE PKEACHEPt." 513 

compensations for poverty. The man who gloats on 
having wealth is not satisfied with what he has, after all. 
The more he has, the more he wants. Thus the craving 
for wealth is mere folly. As riches increase, expenses 
grow ; so that a rich man has only the name of being so, 
and can but look on, while others enjoy themselves in 
devouring his substance. Even the humble blessing of 
sleep, which is not denied the poorest slave, whether he 
lie down hungry or after a humble meal, flies from the 
perfumed chambers of the great ; their very wealth filling 
them with anxieties that banish it from their silken 
pillows. 



THE PREACHER'S LAST WORDS. 

m 

In order to understand the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, it 
is necessary to glance back at the passages that lead to it. 
The counsel of the book, throughout, is to enjoy the present, 
since we do not know what the future may bring. As 
the will of Providence is hidden from us, too much 
weighing and planning is unwise. Whether in charity or 
in business, we must be prepared to leave the result, in 
many cases, uncertain, — to cast our bread on the waters, 
as the proverb phrased it ; that is, to do things which seem 
as useless and as thankless as sowing the sea would be. 
The Turks say, "Do good, though it be thrown on the 
waters ; if the fish don't come to know of it, God knows." 
Be widely generous. " Give a portion to seven, and even 
to eight," and thus, though it seem at times thrown- away 
kindness, it will be found by you again, after many days ; 
for evil may come on you, and your bounty will then 
bring friends when you most need them. It is true that 
we never know what is to befall us, but this is no reason 
why we should do nothing. 

" The purposes of God are inexorable ; their fulfilment is 
inevitable, just as the cloud, heavy with rain, must empty 
itself on the earth, and the tree must fall, and lie, as its 
leaning, one way or other, has determined. Eain must 
go before sowing ; but if the peasant too critically study 
the wind, in hopes of the north one, that brings rain, the 

6U 



THE PKEACHER'S LAST WOJJDS. 515 

time for sowing may pass ; and if he watch too keenly in 
harvest to secure bright, rainless wind, he may lose his 
crop. We know as little about the winds as about the 
growth of the unborn child. Therefore be industrious. 
Sow in the morning, and keep on till night ; for you 
cannot tell whether the morning or the evening work 
will be the more successful, or whether both may not do 
well for you. 

" Life, after all, is worth living, and the worker has a 
right to enjoy it ; and this enjoyment of it, resting on 
diligence, and ennobled by the fear of God, is the highest 
and truest pleasure that we can have ; for we must not 
forget that life passes quickly, and that God wishes us to 
enjoy it, since the days of darkness in the underworld 
are many, and, after life, all is nothing, and vanity, the 
blackness of the kingdom of the dead being all that 
follows it. Eejoice, therefore, young man ! while you 
are young, and indulge your heart and eyes as far as is 
prudent, but take care not to go too far ; for God always 
punishes excess and wrong- doing. Therefore take heed 
that you do not bring sorrow, or Divine anger, on your 
heart, or trouble on your health ; for both youth and 
the glory of manhood are, after all, like age itself, — 
only vanity. 

" Eemember, then, thy Creator in the days of thy youth. 
Enjoy them, but do not forget, as thou dost so, that He 
will reckon with thee if thou abuse them. Enjoy them 
while as yet the evil days of old age have not come, nor 
the years approach, of which you will say, that you have 
no pleasure in them. Eejoice in thy sunny spring and 
summer, before the autumn brings on the dreary winter, 
when the storms obscure the sun by day, and the moon 



516 THE preacher's last words. 

by night, with their veil of clouds, and one dark sky 
follows another, torrent falling after torrent. 

The picture of old age as conceived by the Preacher is 
now given in a succession of striking images. The body 
is thought of as a house; but this image is used in 
connection with the picture of winter storms that has 
preceded. At the wild uproar of the tempest the keepers 
of the house, that is, the menials, are terrified, and their 
masters, the " strong men," crouch in fear, — images which 
may allude to the trembling of the whole frame as death 
comes near, weakening every power. The maids at the 
mill cease their work, when such alarms frighten them off, 
and the ladies of the family shrink back from the lattices, 
through which they delighted to look out. Or, it may 
be, the grinding no longer sounds loud and long, as it did 
in the days when the household was young and needed 
much, and they who look out at the lattices are old, and 
indifferent, and few. Or are the grinders the teeth, and 
they that look out of the windows the eyes ? 

The front door, opening on the street, is closed. Is 
this the mouth, or rather, as the word is dual, the two 
lips ? Those who carry out the figure of a storm think 
of the doors being closed, to keep out the wind and rain ; 
but this hardly suits the next words — " When the sound 
of the grinding is low," — which seems better applicable to 
the feebler sound of the voice in old age. The nervous 
weakness of age further shows itself by its starting at 
the sound of a bird, and by the enfeebled hearing, which 
almost silences all the sounds of music to it. When 
men come thus near their end, a slight ascent is a great 
matter to them, and their helplessness fills them with fear, 
as they creep along the way. The almond tree, with 



THE preacher's LAST WORDS, 517 

its blossoms, first ruddy and then white, is a picture 
of the snowy head, especially as the almond flourishes 
in the midst of the winter of Palestine. Even the grass- 
hopper, which in the East lights on every one, in its 
constant leaps, is a burden now, though it is of no weight, 
and is off in a moment. Appetite, moreover, fails, so that 
the caperberry, relied upon to stimulate, gives no power 
to eat. 

No wonder ; for the old man is sinking into his " ever- 
lasting house " — literally, " his house of for ever " — and 
the mourning-men gather near the dwelling, to be ready 
with their dirge flutes and wails, as soon as the breath 
has actually ceased ; for they hope they may get the job. 
They are prowling round, even before the thread of life is 
broken, — that thread which holds up the tent of our 
beitig, as the silver tent-cord keeps up a royal tent, leav- 
ing it to collapse on the earth when the cord is loosed 
from its fastening, — before the fall of the tent brino^s down 
and shatters the lamp, filled with golden oil, that hangs 
from the tent roof. But now a second figure is intro- 
duced. Life has been compared to the cord that holds up 
the tent, and to the lamp that hangs in its midst ; it is 
now^ compared to the water-jar, so brittle in the East, 
being broken at the fountain, and to the water-wheel by 
which water is raised, being broken at the underground 
cistern, over which it stood. 

. Then, says the preacher, shall the dust return to the 
earth, to become dust once more, and the spirit, or breath, 
shall return to God, who gave it. One would like to see 
in these words an indication of belief in immortality ; but 
the unequivocal language of the third chapter ^ shows 

1 Eccles. iii. 18-21. 



518 THE PREACHEIi'S LAST WOEDS. 

that the Preacher left it, at best, an open question, 
whether the " spirit " of man goes upward, or the " spirit " 
of the beast goes downward to the earth.^ ISTo more is 
meant than that the vital breath of man, resumed again 
by God, who had made him by it a " living being," or 
"soul," rises once more to its source, as the speck of cloud 
melts into the blue at the opening of the day. 

Closing his sad reflections, the Preacher sums up all in the 
repetition of his depressing cry, " Vanity of vanities ; all 
is vanity." Had he looked forward to a life immortal, 
could he have said so ? The portion from the ninth verse 
is regarded by most to be the writing of another author, 
not only from the difference in doctrinal teaching, but 
from its being written in the third person, whereas the 
Preacher always uses the first. However this may be, 
the conclusion is full of truest wisdom. "Fear God,'* 
says he, " and keep His commandments ; for this is the 
duty of all men. For God shall bring every work into 
judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil." In such words, perhaps, we have 
the voice of a later age, when the kindling light of im- 
mortality was shedding a morning twilight of the great 
truth, before the rise of the Sun of righteousness, Jesus 
Christ, " brought life and immortality " into full light. 

1 The correct translation of Eccles. iii. 21 is, " Who knoweth the spirit of 
man, whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goeth 
downward to the earth?" See, also, verses 19 and 20, in which man ia 
expressly said to "have no pre-eminence over a beast : for all is vanity." 



REFLECTIONS, 

The sweet lessons taught us by the Psalms bring home, 
among others, the great one, that the doing of good is 
often ordered, in the moral government of God, as the 
only reward to be reaped by him who does it. The 
greatest benefactors of the race have sown the seed of 
which we reap the golden harvests, and passed silently 
into the darkness that rounds the little sunlit islet of our 
life. Who first taught men the use of the plough, or the 
culture of the grain-crops ? By whom were the founda- 
tions laid from which have slowly risen, through the ages, 
the wondrous creations of scientific discovery, in all the 
immeasurable realms of nature ? The present is the child 
of all the past. As the hut of the Egyptian rises above 
the sweep of the overflowing Mle waters, by its standing 
on the dust-mound of innumerable dwellings of his prede- 
cessors, who have lived on the same spot, built their poor 
shelters, finished their day, and long, long ago joined 
the nameless, forgotten myriads beyond the grave, so we, 
to-day, enjoy the vantage-ground of civilisation and cul- 
ture to which our century has risen, through the labour, 
the genius, and the slow accumulation, millennium after 
millennium, of whatever its noblest sons have toilfully 
brought from the unknown. 

To do goodj then, is to be, in itself, its exceeding great 

619 



520 REFLECTIONS. 

reward. ISTo thought of fame or fortune, here or hereafter, 
is to taint the worth of our motives in anything we 
propose to do for the honour of God or the good of man. 
If modest advantage come from our endeavours, let us 
thank the Eternal, and show our gratitude by our use of 
His favours ; but, in our noblest efforts, let us follow the 
good and the true for their own sakes, not from any mean 
and vitiating thought of personal vanity or material profit. 
Sufficient, that He who sits in the heavens knows all. Even 
Christ saw of the travail of His soul, onlv when He had 
reached the farther side. 

The great uncertainty as to the dates of the different 
psalms, is a strong argument for hesitation in accepting 
the confident opinions of extreme critics, as to the date of 
any of them in particular. Some, for example, ascribe the 
First Psalm to the second century before Christ ; others 
say it is just a little older than the time of Jeremiah ; 
others, that it dates from the next age to that of Solomon. 
The Second Psalm has been variously pronounced to be 
by David, by Solomon, by iN^athan, Isaiah, Hezekiah, or 
Alexander Janni^os, who lived eighty years before Christ, 
while the Twenty-third Psalm has been assigned to David, 
Jeremiah, the time of Nehemiah, or to the age of the 
Maccabees. That any one, therefore, however eminent, 
should speak confidently as to psalm dates, appears to argue 
self-confidence fully as much as modesty. 

The necessity for keeping in mind the Eastern origin of 
the Bible, and the modes of thought of the ages to which 
we are indebted for it, is forcibly shown in the study of 
the Psalms or Prophets. Thus, in the First Psalm, we 
must not forget the dry and thirsty landscapes, which 
depend on runlets of water for the greenness of the trees 



REFLECTIONS. 521 

planted at any p dnt over them. I remember an army 
surgeon saying to me at one place in Galilee, " How much 
would you ask, to consent to take a hundred acres here for 
nothing, if you had to work them ? " They were simply a 
stony desolation ; and yet, if water could have been secured, 
with which to irrigate them, they would doubtless have 
been rich in their yield. As it is, wherever the night 
mists reach, it is wonderful how the poorest soil repays 
labour. And it must not be thoucrht that all Palestine is 
dependent solely on irrigation. There is, in fact, very little 
of this, except in gardens and in the orange-groves of the 
sea-plains. Wide fields at the German colony of Sarona — 
the same name as "Sharon" — yield richly, with no moisture 
but the periodical rains, and the beneficent night mists 
from the sea. 

In the Second Psalm it is very instructive to notice the 
applications of the word " anointed," which, in the Hebrew, 
is " the Messiah." We find Saul and the other Jewish 
kings mentioned as God's Messiah ; and so, also, is Cyrus, 
King of Persia. It was a name given, besides, to the High 
Priests; so that when we say of our Lord that He was the 
Messiah, we use the word current with the Jews, for those 
set over the affairs of a kingdom, or of the Church, by the 
solemn anointing or consecration of God. It is in this 
sense we use it of Jesus. He was the Christ, or Messiah, 
or Anointed, of God, over His spiritual kingdom, the 
Christian Church. The contrast between the Jewish and 
the Christian ideas of God's Anointed, or, to leave the 
Hebrew word untranslated, his "Messiah," is vividly shown 
in the Book of Psalms, which embodies the national con- 
ception of successive centuries, and, as the language of the 
disciples shows, even of the days of our Lord. 



522 REFLECTIONS. 

The Old Testament " Messiah " is the national hero, who 
will lead a triumphant war against the powers from 
whom the nation has suffered. The Prince of Peace, our 
" Messiah/' comes, not to destroy men's lives, but to save 
them.^ His life among us is the golden noontide of 
eternal love ; His reign is that of righteousness, and peace, 
and joy of the Holy Ghost. He is the one over whose 
birth angels rejoiced, in melodious utterances of brother- 
hood and good- will to men. 

The story of Daniel and his companions voluntarily ab- 
staining from the tempting indulgences of the royal table, 
and contenting themselves with the humble fare of a plain 
vegetable diet, that they might not do violence to their 
conscience, is a lesson for old and young in our own day. 
To dare to do right is noble, especially when, as in the 
case of Daniel, it costs a real sacrifice of our natural tastes, 
or a risk to our personal interests. If all of us kept his 
example in mind, we should fortliwith have a mighty 
revolution in the present order of things. We should no 
longer hear of " the custom of the trade," or of the 
"profession," or of the "market." We should no more 
profess one morality at church and another through the 
week. Business would no longer mean, as it too often 
does, the science of taking all possible advantage of one's 
neighbour in a bargain ; and, in regard to such public or 
private vices, as we might, in any measure, counteract by 
our example, it would mean, that self-denial for the love 
of our fellow was the delightful privilege of our lives. In 
the matter of national temperance, what a change would it 
soon bring about, if all who feel the horrors of the present 
reign of drinking habits were to abjure the use of that 

^ Luke ix. 56. 



REFLECTIONS. 528 

which ruins so many ! Moderation is very well where all 
are moderate ; but, in our day, when strong drink is a more 
deadly enemy of the race, " than war, famine, and pestilence 
united," self-denial is urgently needed. I trust that Mr. 
Facing-both-Ways will go out of favour. Dare to be a 
Daniel 1 Copy the spirit that said, " Destroy not him with 
thy meat, for whom Christ died;" "It is good neither to 
eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy 
brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." ^ 

The recalling to Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed 
and forgotten, opens a vision of the relation in which we 
stand to God, that may well make us thoughtful. We 
may forget, but He does not ; we may only think, but He 
knows even the unexpressed thought. The young man 
tempted to do wrong by apparent secrecy, should re- 
member, that, if man be away, God is near. The fiery 
furnace has often been kindled since the days of the three 
Jewish confessors, but the result is always the same. 
Dare to be true to God and yourself, and you must be 
more than conqueror ; for even if you suffer to the utter- 
most that man can do, you keep the citadel of your soul 
untaken, and, as a valiant servant and soldier of the truth, 
are a true hero, among the shining multitudes who have 
been faithful unto death, and are now wearing the crown 
of eternal life. 

The same grand lesson is taught also by the story of 
the den of lions; fear God, and you need fear nothing. 
To those to whom the Book of Daniel was first known, 
all the lessons of the historical part of it are variations of 
one moral. " You are under the tyranny of the heathen, 
and may well fear his wrath, if you rise to strike for 

1 Rom. xiv. 15, 2L 



524 REFLECTIONS. 

freedom. But be not dismayed. Think of the fidehty 
of Daniel to the Law, and how God was on his side, even 
against the mighty Chaldean ; and not only guarded him 
from danger, but crowned him with honour even in Baby- 
lon. Think of the three, in the awful fiery furnace ! No 
situation could be more hopeless, apart from God. But 
did He desert these brave confessors ? What is man, 
Judah ! that thou shouldest fear his power, if thou darest 
all, for the glory of His great name ? He who shut the 
mouths of the roaring wild beast can protect thee, if thou 
do thy duty, and rise, for the law and for thy God." No 
words were more fitted to rouse the nation. 

The resurrection of Christ is constantly proclaimed in 
the New Testament to be the cornerstone of our faith. 
" If Christ be not risen," says Paul, " then is our preaching 
vain, your faith is also vain." The apostles, we are told, 
"preached Jesus and the resurrection." It was this, 
indeed, which gave Christianity its supreme attraction to 
that age ; for the proclamation of a world beyond the ^ 
present, redressing the inequalities and wrongs of this 
life, broke over the earth like a trumpet-peal from the 
Infinite, startling mankind from the despair in which the 
mysteries of life had sunk them, and fixing its gaze on 
the hitherto impenetrable heavens, from which, it now 
seemed, they might momentarily look for the appearance 
of the Judge of the living and the dead, of whose near 
approach that trumpet- voice had been the herald. 

We know how great an influence the preaching of the 
neai' realisation of " the second advent " has, even now ; 
but what must have been the effect on the miserable 
throngs of domestic slaves of antiquity, or on the mass of 
human wretchedness that, in those days, filled the alleys 



REFLECTIONS. 525 

and wynds of cities like Eome, or on the naked and hungry 
crowds of field-hands and wandering shepherds, whose 
lives were less regarded than those of the beasts among 
which they were passed ? For, even apart from the light 
shed over their darkness, by the prospect of a blissful 
immortality, there was the mighty support of a recogni- 
tion, by the Eternal Father, of the essential equality, of all 
men, and the proclamation that the only distinctions He 
acknowledged were those of greater or less moral worth- 
We need look no further for an explanation of the rapid 
spread of Christianity. 



THE END. 



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